What is Economic Activity

In this chapter, the author has discussed India's first rainbow e-governance project encompassing the “ICTs, e-governance, rural development and access to the basic administrative services” aspects in India's hinterland and one of the most backward regions. The paper argues for the “socio economic welfare” stance of the ICTs and the resultants benefits thereof. The present study investigates the socio-economic aspect of community e-governance project named Gyandoot in remote villages of Madhya Pradesh. Out of 18 services offered by Gyandoot, people fully utilized only 3 services (land records, exam results and addressing public grievances) which lead to the considerable fulfillment of target audience's needs (felt needs and expected needs) and improvement in their work efficiency by high scores on convenience, satisfaction, time, cost, reliability and overall benefits factors and a reduction in the time and money for government service delivery. However, Gyandoot could not fare impressively well on spurt in employment and economic activity fronts thus leading to only moderate gains. Only 17% of the Gyandoot's potential could be utilized and 39% was used moderately. Rest 44% could not be utilized at all due to less demand of services. ‘Optimism in IT hardware' and ‘development of entrepreneurial attitude' were the most noticeable aspects of economic activity generated. The study also posits a few very important questions on the sustainability, interoperability and hierarchical issues relating to the project.