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MP bags South Asia’s E-governance Manthan Awards:
Madhya Pradesh has won South Asia’s prestigious E-governance Manthan
Award - 2009 for effective public service deliveries through
innovative IT applications......
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Bhopal: The prestigious “Manthan Award” for the year
2009 has been awarded to Dr. Syed Mohammad Haider Rizvi.
Under the category of
'e-Enterprise and Livelihood Development' bagged by “KHETI”
(Knowledge Help Extension Technology Initiative) pioneering research
project called Rural e-Services Project in India undertaken in Sironj block of Madhya Pradesh was experimented and implemented in
India by Dr. SM Haider Rizvi and his British colleague Dr. Andy
Dearden, who have been working for the development of this
technology for the last 3 years
The project was a joint
initiative of Sheffield Hallam University, The University of West
England and the Oxford University, United Kingdom. The project. The KHETI has now attracted the attention of the policy makers and
planners interested in ensuring development using ICTs (Information
Communication and Technologies) from all over the world.
Dr S M Haider
Rizvi who is currently Director (Policy Analysis) at School of Good
Governance and Policy Analysis, Bhopal, received this award at a
function organized by Digital Empowerment Foundation, New Delhi in
collaboration of Ministry of Information Technology, Government of
India and important players in the sector. Dr Haider had piloted the
project successfully and has already done a short feasibility test
of KHETI with a cooperative formed and managed by small and marginal
farmers in Sironj.
The KHETI
functionalities is speeding-up communications amongst stakeholders
especially agriculture specialists, farmer representatives and
farmers. They, now with the help of mobiles, could create a
multimedia package (known as Short Dialogue Strip or SDSs) using 6
high resolution images and 1.5 minutes voices at their fields/
villages and send to Agriculture Specialist by uploading on the web
to get back responses on their queries, problems and other areas of
interest. The system is generating knowledge bank and spreading it
at large for wider usage, benefits and empowerment of the poor
agriculture community.
The unique feature of
the initiative is that technology has been developed in a
participatory manner, involving the farmers as co-designers and
focusing on the capacity building and empowerment of the
stakeholders. The technology has proved of vital importance to
improve income, livelihoods and empowerment of farmers. In KHETI
trial run itself over 200 queries were handled and some significant
risks to harvest (and house hold economies) were mitigated. The
technology could very well be applied to enhance communications and
information exchanges in other sectors, as well.
School of Good
Governance and Policy Analysis, Bhopal is discussing possibilities
of scaling up the technology applications in India particularly in
Madhya Pradesh along with Sheffield Hallam University, UK.
(pervezbari@eth.net)
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