Press release from Business Wire India
Source: The Cyber Café Association of India
Friday, September 04, 2009 04:10 PM IST (10:40 AM GMT)
Editors: General: Consumer interest, Social issues; Business: Advertising, PR & marketing, Financial Analyst, Information technology; Technology
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Cyber Café Association of India emphasizes on the Importance of Internet for Masses
New Delhi, Delhi, India, Friday, September 04, 2009 -- (Business Wire India) -- While all the stakeholders of the Internet ecosystem acknowledge that countries with large population like India need to have virtual world/infrastructure to empower their citizens, yet internet penetration stands at abysmal figures in our country. Only about 6.8 million people in the country are using Broadband and the figures for Internet users vary from 60-70 millions; hardly a heartening figure in a nation with a billion plus population.
The reasons are not difficult to seek and include low PC penetration, high cost of PCs & hardware and limited service offerings.
This anomaly has to be corrected soon, if each and every part of the country including the remote areas is to benefit from the fruits of the IT Revolution. A successful alternative has to be cost effective, easily accessible on 24x7 basis and should have the potential to be set up as a viable business unit.
What we are suggesting is not something revolutionary. It is already there and perhaps we all have perfected out Internet skills when it was at its nascent stage and was yet to become affordable.
Yes, we are talking about Cyber Cafes & CSCs.
Says T.V. Ramchandran, Director General, COAI, "Good distribution system of Cyber Cafes together with mobile internet service can play a significant role in increasing the Internet penetration in India. They have an immense potential which has not been fully tapped."
With about 36% of the Indian population accessing Internet from Cyber Cafes, however their immense reach is yet to be exploited to the hilt. It can hardly be doubted that Cyber Cafes have the power of unleashing a revolution that would totally transform the lives of the people, especially the strata of the society who are not computer literate, find PC costly, and consider Broadband at home a luxury. As Dr. Subho Ray, President, IAMAI puts it, "For the last 15 years public access points, better known as Cyber Cafes, have been the most important point for accessing Internet in India." According to him the benefits of the Internet to the masses will remain a distant dream unless these access points are allowed to flourish, even if it means an administrative directive. Adds E.V.S. Chakravarthy, CEO, You Telecom, "There is excellent opportunity for Cyber Cafes especially in Tier 2 and 3 cities of India, provided all the pieces of the value chain are in place."
But even after all this, when it comes to policy making, the interest of the facilitators i.e., the Cyber Café owners as well as the end users, gets ignored. In fact, there is need for an immediate step to encourage and promote the public internet access system viz., the cyber cafes and single PC Internet kiosks. "The Cyber Cafes, in future," believes C.V.S. Suri, COO, Sify Technologies Ltd., "will become the primary means for a large section of urban and semi-urban residents to access the plethora of e-Governance services".
The Cyber Cafes from being merely an Internet browsing point can become centres offering services like internet telephony, video conferencing, localized content, remote surveillance etc. These would not only give a fillip to the internet usage and penetration but, most importantly, also encourage an information revolution leading to the empowerment of the masses.
It requires only a bit of vision, insight, support and guidance. The process could be initiated by increasing the service offerings of the Cyber Café such as introduction of Education, e-Governance, Travel Services and Utility Services amongst others. It would, thus, be a Win-Win situation for all-the common man would get services at his doorstep, save time and money; while Government would be able to achieve the objectives of Internet penetration and e-Governance by reducing load on Government infrastructure; and the Café owner would be able to increase his business. "These Cyber Cafes," says T.V. Ramchandran, Director General, COAI, "could also become distribution points for mobile and internet services, to give one example, to augment not just the income of the Cyber Café owners but would also help the fruits of technology reach the masses."
To increase Internet penetration especially in the rural areas, Government of India has initiated an ambitious Common Service Center (CSC) Project. It seeks to connect 0.1 million rural CSCs and 0.01 million urban CSCs, in the process connecting 0.6 million villages through PPP. However, it is only a tip of an iceberg. Says N. Ravi Shankar, Joint Secretary, DIT, "The country can have 10 times more than the present numbers. It needs more Citizen Internet Points especially in the rural areas." He went on further to add that the entrepreneurs should think of setting up Cyber Cafes or single PC kiosks, offering multiple services, at public convergence points like Hospitals, Railway Stations, Colleges, Petrol Pumps, Mandi's etc. so as to benefit the masses in a big way, and suggested that STD/ PCO booths too could be converted into such information centres.
However, there are several challenges as well. Poor and inadequate connectivity remains the top issue. And then Kiosk operators drop out due to factors like inadequate money, poor internet speed and lack of Government support. These aspects need to be addressed at the right earnest if the e-governance measures are to bear the desired results. It is only then that the empowerment of the masses can take place. And Cyber Cafes will be a proud partner in this spectacular change.
The Cyber Café Association of India: Spearheading the Change
The Cyber Café Association of India (CCAOI) has been set up with the objective of promoting Internet to the common masses across the nation particularly, through 180,000 cyber cafes & 40,000 CSCs in India.
"Our main aim is to protect the interest of its members and help them establish and sustain a world-class infrastructure, which in turn would facilitate affordable Internet services to the aam aadmi" says Naresh Ajwani, President of CCAOI. He also opines that all that has been done by the Government (CSCs and SWAN) will only fall in place when we have the cyber cafe & CSC community with the government, as internet solution can never be in pieces and if one does not fit this piece of jigsaw puzzle of Indian internet, the picture will look only as 'Monalisa with smile'.
India Model of Internet can't ignore the shared PC concept as otherwise all efforts would just be a project and not the service and that's only how Kalwati and Lilalwati can get connected and benefitted from India's growth.
CONTACT DETAILS
Amrita Choudhury, The Cyber Café Association of India, +91 9899682701, amritachoudhury8@gmail.com
KEYWORDS
CONSUMER, SOCIAL, MARKETING, Financial Analyst, IT, TECHNOLOGY
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