Alleviation: An International Journal of Nutrition, Gender & Social Development, ISSN 2348-9340 Volume 5, Number 5 (2018):
© Arya PG College, Panipat & Business Press India Publication, Delhi
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Empowering Women of Rural Unorganized Sector through Digital Transformation

Shuchi Srivastava
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
Northern India Engineering College, New Delhi, India
Email: myself_shuchi008@rediffmail.com

Introduction

Women play an important role in various sectors such as economic, political, social, sports, educational, enterprising etc. Women are crucial part of Indian economy but they are abused in various sectors specially unorganized sector. Submissiveness and servility is in their nature because of the inequality they are facing. Despite the great growth of education in many countries, women are still not considered as equal gender everywhere. The status of women is considered to be inferior even after their great contribution to society. It is the right time for women to stand for themselves. Women empowerment is a burning issue these days. Women empowerment is an essential tool to bring about changes in their socio-economic condition. Through their empowerment, women gain greater share of control over resources i.e. material, human and intellectual such as knowledge, information, ideas and financial resources involving access to money and control over decision making in the home, community, society and nation. Various NGOs are working for the betterment of women and giving them training for self-independence. Government is also taking this issue seriously and has announced various policies in favor of women.
In this scenario Information and Communication Technology is also playing an important role. The world is in the midst of a knowledge revolution, complemented by opening up of entirely new vistas in communication technologies. Recent developments in the fields of information and communication technology are indeed revolutionary in nature.
Information has become the chief determinant of the progress of nations, communities and individual. There is potential for Information and Technology to eliminate gender inequality and to empower women in society. There is growing body of evidence on the benefits of Information and Communication Technology for women’s empowerment, through increasing their access to health, nutrition, education and other human development opportunities, such as political participation.
Through ICT; women are getting security, awareness, knowledge, employment, confidence, popularity etc. Various IT enabled services have given new trends for the market such as E-commerce, E-learning etc. The objectives of the paper are: to discuss the role of Information Technology in helping women of the rural unorganized sectors, to analyze the issues and concerns in using Information Technology in rural unorganized sector and to suggest measures in which IT can benefit women efficiently.
Benefits of Digitalization
In recent years, there have been huge advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) that has changed various components of human life. These changes have brought a positive impact in the process of public service delivery and socio-economic structure of communities. Now, there is penetration of information into rural unorganized areas as well, because without its presence there, we cannot think about development of the entire country.
In India, Information Technology in the recent past has demonstrated the positive impact on minimizing the processing costs, increasing transparency and supporting economic development by income generating ventures, increase in agricultural production and improvements in health and education sectors, all of which promote the overall quality of life of women. ICT contributes in providing the transactional services for the rural people with the benefit of time and cost savings in obtaining the public services with efficiency and effectiveness and through it, we can examine changes in agricultural productivity and improved quality of life.
The rural ICT applications attempt to offer the services of central agencies (District Administration, Cooperative Union, and State and Central Government Departments) to the women of unorganized rural sector at door steps. Benefits of digitalization are as follows:
Sharing of Information
One of the primary roles of Information technology is to provide people with information of any kind they require because information is necessary for development. Women of this sector are not aware of the existence of national organizations to support and protect them because awareness campaigns do not seem to reach them. ICT can deliver potentially useful information, such as market prices for women in small organized sector. For example, use of cellular telephones illustrates how technology can be used to benefit women’s lives, by saving travelling time between the market and suppliers.
Improving Standard of Living
Information technology can help women consult doctors in rural areas, thus reducing health issues. It can help educate child by using distant learning methodology and many more.
Improving Agriculture
Agriculture is the primary unorganized occupation of women in rural India. However, in the recent years, the financial position is not so strong. The strategies can be changed by using ICT , they can connect to the experts and take their guidance to improve the current situation. Rural information centers help in providing a learning environment for farmer groups for using ICT.
Imparting Education
Education is one of the strongest tools to develop and empower the women. The requirements are a will to learn and a good teacher to teach. Online learning activities facilitate more effective education and offer significant benefits over traditional methods.
Technical Empowerment
It implies skills and competence in using new ICT, the ongoing support and advice in using ICT and the access to high quality technologies. The confidence to use and speak about ICT also increases in women. Women’s sustainable livelihoods can be enhanced through expanded access of women producers and traders to markets, and to education, training and employment opportunities.
Empowerment through Employment
ICT is changing the concept of work and workplace. New areas of employment such as teleworking i.e. working from a distance are becoming feasible with new technology, often from their own homes and at any time, thereby raising their incomes to become more financially independent and empowered. Information Technology can generate more employment such as STD, book stalls and beauty parlour services through apps etc.
Empowerment through Internet and E-commerce
The internet can offer great assistance to women entrepreneurs. It offers databases, put together by women’s groups, from which women can find relevant links, connections, resources and information and develop partnerships, not just for their services, but also for financing, mentoring and business coaching. E-commerce initiatives can link producers and traders directly to markets at national, regional and even global levels, allowing them to restructure their economic activities and by pass intermediaries and the male-dominated and exploitative market structure.
Social Empowerment
Women can be socially more connected through the internet. It opens the avenues to connect to the outside world and share their information and knowledge. It helps them in creating awareness and understanding of issues. They can participate in group activities with other women.
Psychological Empowerment
Women’s self confidence and self esteem is increased making them feel more valued and respected. Motivation, interest and enthusiasm increases. Freedom to do things or express themselves increases the feelings of belongingness, well-being and happiness.
Political Empowerment
The women can participate in
policy making and taking action to change their life or their community. Networking and lobbying increases, thereby changing stereotypes about rural women.
Economical Empowerment
With the increase in employment opportunities, women can gain control over income and are able to support family.
Role of Different Institutions
ICT can be a very important tool for the political and social women empowerment, thereby promoting gender equality. There are a large number of government and non-government organizations that are promoting ICT. Some of them are as follows:
SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association)
SEWA was one of the first organizations globally to realize the necessity of using ICT for the productive growth of the unorganized sector. Several Community Learning Centre (CLC) known as ‘Sanskar Kendras’ (SSK) at various locations are established that promote skill trainings, health education, social awareness and disaster preparedness. A majority of neglected community got ICT training at a concessional rate through this initiative, so that they could use it as a mean of livelihood generation.
Smile (Savitri Marketing Institution for Ladies Empowerment)
Various IT seminars for women are conducted in collaboration with IT companies like NIIT. The motive is to literate women about computer and its benefits.
Ujjas Innovation
In this, various views about different issues related to women are released in a newsletter called “Ujjas”. The newsletter went on air on All India Radio Bhuj Station in Gujarat. By this effort, the channel wants to throw light on the condition of women in various areas.
The Dhan Foundation and Swayam Krishi Sangam
They educate poor women about ICT so that they can get the respect, honor, strength, independence that they deserve.
Mobile Information Technology for Rural Advancement (MITRA)
It is one of the technological initiatives of People’s Education and Development Organization (PEDO), which was established in Dungarpur, Rajasthan in the year 1987-88 after a series of draughts. Its mission is, ‘the utilization of existing resources for poverty alleviation and environmental up-gradation and strengthening value based people’s institution.
Mahiti Manthana
ICT enabled Resource Centre is a response to a felt need of an established grassroots program-IT for Change which was registered in 2004 with Mahila Samakhya Karnataka (MSK) which was set up in 1989. The motive behind this was to empower economically and socially disadvantaged rural women through various self-help group activities. Mahila Samakhya’s women empowerment strategy addresses the following theme areas-education, community linkages to government institutions, health, legal literacy, livelihoods and self-governance. Mahiti Manthana project was situated within the context of the activity of Mahila Samakhya, Karnataka, in Mysore district, whose goal is to strengthen the information and communication processes of sanghas and federations.
ICT for Women Conciliation Centre
ICT for Women Conciliation Centre is one of the initiatives of VIDIYAL, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) is working since 1986 with Self-Help Groups (SHGs), numbering more than 250 with nearly 4000 members in Theni District, Tamil Nadu. With the support of Commonwealth, VIDIYAL has initiated Lifelong Learning in micro enterprises development. Still there is a need to strengthen the role of women with respect to their rights and enhance their negotiation power in legal, constitutional and human rights at various levels-household, village and enterprise, this was the concept of ICT for Women Conciliation Centre. VIDIYAL is running a Women Conciliation Centre (WCC) that has been approved by The High Court of Madras and supported by Munsif-Cum-Magistrate Court at Bodi.
Industries
Various companies like IBM, HCL, GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, TCS etc are providing a variety of services to attract women employees like maternity leaves, child care leaves, flexible working hours, work from home facility, pick and drop facility etc.
Government Agencies
Government has provided various policies for girls like free education, reservation in jobs, admissions, elected members of local bodies and member of board of directors in public limited companies etc. It gives loan and subsidies to women for higher studies, projects and research. Like, Karnataka State Women’s Development Corporation (KSWDC) has launched e-mahile project for women over 11 districts. And each woman is given free laptop, printer, camera and projector for their use. The project also includes yoga classes and personality development classes for women as added advantage.
Challenges for Digitalization in Rural Areas
Women in rural unorganized sector are less knowledgeable and due to this, they are not able to access information and accommodate their particular needs. The following issues need to be looked into for Digital power for women in unorganized areas:
Illiteracy
Literacy rate of the women is very less. Government is attempting to increase the literacy rate but still a large amount of work needs to be done as it is far less than the literacy rate in organized sector.
Technical Illiteracy
There is need of technical literacy as well as literacy in India; there is a connection between education level and use of electronic means or internet. This is a major drawback in which the women are not technically literate to use the technology. Due to this, they are not capable of using the services provided by the government.
Poverty
Women in unorganized sector have poverty issues and accessing the Internet is a costly issue for necessary communications in the form of installing the required telephone lines needed for internet or email access is similarly too exclusive in developing country.
Lack of Awareness
There is common lack of awareness concerning advantages of digitalization as well as the process mixed up in executing successful G-C, G-G and G-B projects.
Infrastructure
There is the shortage of required infrastructure like electricity, internet technology and methods of communications will influence the speed which postponed the implementation process.
Discrimination
There is too much dissimilarity in fast access to public sector services between various divisions of citizens, mainly among urban and rural communities, among the educated and illiterate, among the rich and poor and among organized sector and unorganized sector.
Cost
Cost is one of the most important exclusive factors that hinders the path of e-governance success mainly in the developing country India. They do not have the funds for the operating expense of telephone line and internet connections etc.
Hesitation to Revolutionize
People are disinclined to change. As digitalization means transformation of the system from manual to computerize based, it is generally disliked by the women as they are required to learn new things in it for which they necessitate to give in additional time and effort.
Speed
During the time of internet accessing, speed plays an important role. But because of the infrastructure, there are the major dissimilarities between the rural and urban areas, that’s why the speed of internet connectivity is not same to all over the India.
Lack of Participation of Society, Public and Private Sectors
Designing of any application requires a very close interaction between the government departments and the agencies developing the solutions. Lack of interaction hinders the implementation process.
Language Dominance
The dominance of English on the internet bounds the access of non-English-speaking population. In the case of India, mostly women in unorganized rural areas speak Hindi. Due to such irresistible domination of English over these communication channels, computers and the internet are relatively useless in Indian villages.
Suggestions
The penetration of IT is bridging the distinction between haves and have-nots. However, latest developments in IT are still not easily accessible to a majority of the rural populace. Some recommendations are as follows:
• More awareness should be created on ICT Education through regular workshops and training programs. There should be provision of need based education in specific skill set.
• Incentives may be given to firms and individuals for encouraging involvement in continuous training in ICT. NGOs and government agencies should go hand in hand for development of computer literacy programs. Colleges can adopt villages for their development.
• Development of supportive infrastructure facilities such as electricity, internet, etc. should take place so that women can get uninterrupted connection to technology. Effective websites should be developed to enable rural women to learn everything at the click of a mouse.
• Effective communication infrastructure / processes should be set up that focus more on the outcome they can create than on the technology itself. This is quite important for engaging local people in establishing communication links and contributing their ideas.
• E-learning centers and kiosks should be set up for enhancing online education for social and economic change in rural society
• Mobile classrooms can be arranged through IT buses.
• Cloud Computing is also needed.
If the above lacunae are removed by the concerned authorities and related persons in a proper way, then the destiny of rural India will shine brightly.
Conclusions
Information Technology gives various benefits for the well-being of human beings. It is well known for its declining costs, widening reach, greater availability and increasing versatility. IT provides resources, information and opportunities for development. The advent of IT has changed the global scenario and many unexplored areas are now open for encashment. Exploring the benefits of digitalization to the maximum possible extent depends on human beings. The same can also be adjusted as per the needs and requirements of women of unorganized rural sector in India.
The area in which ICT can help women is wide and continuously expanding, from managing agriculture at the village-level to standing for local elections and having access to lifelong learning opportunities. IT has the potential to reach those women who have not been reached by any other media, thereby empowering them to participate in economic progress and make them informed about the decision on related issues. India has made tremendous progress economically and technologically. However, its benefits rarely reached women. Access, mastery and control over technology have remained male domain. Though in urban organized area, maximum number of women can access information technological resources but in rural unorganized areas, majority of the women only heard the name of internet. They do not have access to Information Technology due to variety of barriers such as the infrastructural, social, cultural and linguistic. IT hardly caters to the developmental need of the illiterate rural women of unorganized sector who have a long way to move forward in the process of development. The awareness and facilities are missing drastically. Technological initiatives are one of the tools for rural women empowerment which requires reasonable preparatory phase before undertaking any such initiative. There is a need to examine their potential within the existing development context. To make women independent, powerful and strong in all fields with the help of digitalization, necessary actions are to be taken at regional, national and international level.
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