Access to Resources, Moving Online: A Privilege?

In today’s world, resources not only carve out the basic definition of sustenance through food, clothing, and shelter, but have diversified to incorporate more crucial, contemporary issues that adorn today’s surroundings. With a growing emphasis on health and education, greater importance is placed on internet connectivity as a crucial aspect of daily life. However, even after living in the age of the internet, there lies a fairly large, unacknowledged section of the society devoid of such a privilege.

The internet allows people to access banking and financial services, telemedicine services, educational resources, real-time information on government directives, and for the more privileged amongst us, the ability to order food, groceries, and medicines online. Almost all activities in our everyday lives – work, education, entertainment, socializing, shopping, etc. – are moving online. The internet has also emerged as a powerful medium for broadcasting and spreading important information related to coronavirus. Thus, internet access, at some level, acts as an incentive for people to stay at home, practice social distancing while maintaining a connection with their community, relatives, and friends.

However, the latest data shared by TRAI shows that in India, with a population of over 130 crores, more than 68 crore people (about 50% of the population) lie outside the realm of internet connectivity. Rural areas, low-income households and those residing in less developed states have even less dependable internet.

The education sector is, perhaps, the most visibly affected sector due to lack of internet connectivity in the times of the ongoing pandemic. Globally, lockdowns enforced to stop the virus's spread have put 91% of learners out of school. The coronavirus has pushed schools all over the world to go online as new waves of infections keep emerging. In India, a country where the gaps in access to education and the internet were already vast, poor families are struggling to help their children keep up with their education. According to UNICEF, “Available data indicates that approximately a quarter of households (24 percent) in India have access to the internet and there is a large rural-urban and gender divide. The learning gap is likely to widen across high, middle and low-income families, as children from economically disadvantaged families cannot access remote learning.” This has led to a “technology divide” with the poor facing long term academic disadvantages reflecting a tendency to further worsen the existing educational inequality.

One of the ways in which the government has tried to alleviate both these issues of infrastructure and digital literacy has been through the systems of Common Service Centers. These are physical facilities, run by Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLE). These services help the citizen in accessing a wide range of government information and services. These are mostly situated in remote locations, wherein people have less knowledge about internet usage. They are instrumental in assisting important infrastructural programmes like the Digital India Mission, thereby aiding online internet services of all kinds. Similarly, in urban and semi-urban areas, cyber cafes and mobile recharge shops also double up as internet facilitation centres, helping people to transfer money, fill application forms, and access government schemes and information. However, in times of social distancing and the importance of people staying at home, these are a complication, not a solution.

The internet needs to reach every home adequately. At a time while promoting Digital India, Smart Cities, and Aadhar-based KYC for banks, the government needs to promote internet access at the ground level since it has become a basic necessity. Adequate attention needs to be given to the issue so that the socio-economical equilibrium is not disrupted. The rural-urban divide is a persistent issue faced by India and from a certain perspective, sufficient reach, awareness, and greater focus on equitable distribution of resources has the ability to resolve it.

BTS, through numerous projects, has undertaken the responsibility to provide a helping hand to all those in need so that inaccessibility to resources does not come in way of determining a person’s dignity. It works tirelessly to cover aspects of educational accessibility and funding of the underprivileged, to bring health under the perspective of reachability by running campaigns on awareness throughout the pandemic and general menstrual health while creating employment opportunities through community welfare programs like Project Coपल, and to channelize monetary resources by undertaking promotion of locally sourced products and fundraisers to tackle not only the larger issues at stake but also concerns at micro-level like hygiene, wellness, and nourishment of the beneficiaries.

(Feel free to contact us for any collaborations or volunteering opportunities under this theme)