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As In other parts of the world, mobile phones and the internet are bringing about a radical transformation in the way rural India goes about its business. Initially, mobile phones were used for calls and data communications, now they are providing farmers with instant expert advice on agriculture and information about markets for farm commodities. A report from Radhakrishna Rao.
In 2000, ITC, the Indian multi business company, launched the e-Choupal initiative based on digital technology. e-Choupal, which means a meeting placing in Hindi, was launched to break the control that middlemen held at the mandis or markets for agricultural commodities.
They controlled prices and often bought produce at low prices and then sold on for a huge profit. S.Sivakumar, chief executive officer of the agribusiness division of ITC, said that initially e-Choupal was just an experiment to help farmers get a better price for their produce. Now, the e-Choupal network provides data from wide ranging sources.
Installing e-Choupal in a village ITC starts by appointing an organiser or sanchalak who operates from a kiosk which is linked to the Internet via phone lines or by a VSAT connection to a satellite. Each installation serves an average of 600 farmers in the surrounding villages within about a five kilometre radius. The sanchalak bears some of the operating cost but in return earns a service fee for the e-transactions done through his kiosk. The installation cost is borne by ITC.
Linked to the futures market, the e-Choupal network is also helping small farmers to better manage risks. "Before ITC introduced e-Choupal, we were restricted to selling our produce in the local mandi," says Abhishek Jain, a soya farmer and e-Choupal sanchalak. "ITC trained me to manage the internet kiosk and I became the e-Choupal sanchalak in...