Surendra Uttam is a potato farmer from Kanpur. A sustained period of epidemics had ruined his crop for years. His salvation came from Tata Kisan Sansar which advised him to use a combination of fertiliser and urea. It not only saved Uttam's crop from pests, but also improved yield.

Tata Kisan Sansar (TKS), promoted by Tata Chemicals Ltd, is operational in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. It reaches out to over 3.6 million farmers like Uttam. The rural agri-retail outlet offers a range of agri services and input products such as high yeilding seeds and good quality fertilisers and pesticides. The Sansar also makes available the current market information on the kinds of crop needed and at what price the harvest is available. Other services include credit facilities and contract farming, which are beneficial for small farmers. TKS is one of the information and communication technology (ICT)-oriented rural projects which aim to help farmers generate healthier livelihoods working around agriculture. Buoyed by the good response from farmers, Tata Chemicals will soon add services like crop insurance and corporate farming to its project.

In a similar initiative, Mukul Ahmad and her team, associated with UNIDO Cluster Development in Madhya Pradesh, found that young girls were not interested in taking up their ancestral profession of Chanderi weaving as it was too cumbersome and yielded less. The solution here came in the form of an IT-enabled information kiosk in the village. This gave the girls access to newer designs on the internet that prompted them to weave the patterns on the fabric, pulling them to the art again. "The increased IT awareness added value to their mundane weaving activity and gave them access to a newer world," says Ahmad.

ICT is emerging as an effective tool to support the agrarian livelihood of rural people. Besides non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and UN bodies such as Unesco and WHO, ICT is also supported by the National Informatics Centre of the government and private sector players such as ITC, Tata and Mahindra & Mahindra. These organisations operate information kiosks to cater to farmers with researched data on issues including crop, weather, market and services like microfinance and insurance, amongst others.

Most of these kiosks are franchise oriented. The rural population is serviced with information but it comes at a small fee. The volumes of product sold and business deals led by right information bring the profits to the operator.

It was not easy to bring the rural population to these IT-enabled kiosks or chains. Approaching village superiors with the idea and organising visits by farm advisories who explained the benefits of new technologies and products and services bore fruit. Today corporates plan to harness the rural opportunities by extending the present networks.

ITC is now tapping digital opportunities to venture into horticulture and floriculture sectors, promising more options to the vegetable and fruit producers. It now intends to move from agri and agri-processing sectors to health, education, banking, insurance, and the like. It also plans to establish BPO and other IT-enabled services in the e-Choupal centres.

"Pilot projects are already underway in the education and healthcare services," says S Sivakumar, CEO, International Business Division - the ITC division regulating the format e-Choupal. ITC also plans to establish 200 rural malls by 2010 in various formats and with merchandise assortments designed for local preferences. These malls will act as a hub for grocery items both branded and locally produced, entertainment options, education, healthcare and farm advisories. It will also serves to generate rural employment.

Gaining experience with its IKisan format operational across the villages of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad-based Nagarjuna Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd sees tremendous opportunity in other agri-related areas such as dairy and poultry. The project is also working on services like health, education, consumer goods, and sectors like e-goverance and e-commerce.

Ikisan is offering its expertise in conceiving, designing and implementing a turnkey project, Technology Mission for Cotton with the ministry of textiles. This involves developing a cotton software for the benefit of farmers. The software will be installed and operated through computers and touch-screen kiosks spread across 10 cotton growing states in the country.

Farm equipment manufacturer, Mahindra & Mahindra caters to the marginal and small farmers through its agri-input centres, Mahindra Krishi Vihar (MKV). According to Vikram Puri, head, Mahindra Shubhlabh Services Ltd, approximately 80% of the farmers registered with MKVs have land holding less than five acres. They are making farming an attractive economic proposition through three basic guiding steps — growing what the market requires, improving the crop yield and decreasing the cost of crop production.

"The current footprint of MSSL is relatively small compared to the what's possible in this area. We are fine-tuning our business model in addressing the enormous prospects that can arise out of developing more robust linkages from farm to market. In time, these will address whole value chains and would result in strong employment generation opportunities in the rural space," says Puri.

ICT has survived the initial bottlenecks of confined reach to selective states, poor infrastructure, weak awareness among rural populace to emerge as a major employment generator. Sivakumar of ITC suggests increased participation from public, private and non-government entities to help overcome a few basic hurdles.

Tata Chemicals also believes in building sustainable alliances, systems and processes for forging alliances with farmers with a focused approach to attain requisite competencies. TKS has launched a paid value-added service, Tata Kisan Sansar Parivar, where 5-6 key farmers are enrolled for the membership through invitation. The members of the Parivar are provided customised training, soil nutrient testing and an accident insurance cover for the family. According to Kapil Mehan, COO, Fertilizer Division, Tata Chemicals Ltd, the service is garnering good response from rural communities, and already has a membership of over 30,000.

The corporate sector has already sown the first seeds in rural technology participation. The models are evolving with both corporate houses and rural beneficiaries putting their best foot forward. The collective success may spell success for Rural India.