Indian villages should become the back office of the country's cities in the way the latter became the developed world's back office, said Sam Pitroda, World Tel chairman, here Thursday. "Make the villages urban India's back office just as Indian cities have become the world's back office through business process outsourcing," said Pitroda, who ushered in the telephone booth revolution in the 1980s. He told a conference on broadband organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry that such connectivity could help realise Mahatma Gandhi's dream of bringing the villages to the mainstream.
With 200 million Indian youngsters seeking jobs in the next 10 years, the country would need to strengthen its broadband rural network to tackle problems like growing unemployment, he said. "They could then find work right in their villages if they are properly networked," Pitroda pointed out. "The country has 70,000 km of fibre-optic network but hardly two percent is being used. It has 30,000 telephone exchanges but the capacity is hardly being used," he pointed out.
He said the quality of the country's internet experience is poor and only the extension of the broadband connectivity could change this. Along with the expansion of the broadband, the country will have to step up the production of broadband content, he said. According to Pitroda, India needs to put the broadband technology to work in the fields of health, education and e-governance, unlike in South Korea where its use is more in entertainment.
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