The IL&FS-led project has been floundering in part because of the nature of the tenders.
Essentially, the government does not pay for the deployment and day to day operation of the telecentres. The private partner must put in the capital and bear the risk. The government however will offer a subsidy in return for operating telecentres in neighbourhoods of its choice (basically, major habitation areas) whether or not they are commercially viable. In theory, the subsidy is meant to cover the basic cost of operation, but in practice, because it must be bid for, two large bidders decided to fight each other out by bidding negative. That is, they offered to pay the government for the privilege of opening a shop in a village where everyone knows there's not enough money to be made. This absurdity only makes sense when you consider that contracts are handed out a divison at a time (a division is an administrative unit covering several districts) and the winner gains exclusive right to deliver government services (at government fixed prices) for five years. These companies expected they could make up for their losses from the more lucrative towns. This was in early 2008. The tension of the financial bubble was already being felt (for example, the BNP Paribas interbank loan denial incident) and both companies went slow on their deployments, missing their contractual deadlines. You must understand that telecentres are essentially a retail business with huge upfront costs and rapid obsolescence of electronic equipment. Opening a telecentre requires serious power backup, internet connectivity, site selection and preparation, and marketing of services, all of which requires money raised from the capital markets, to be recovered from sales across years. In 2006, the only internet connectivity available was over VSAT, at over Rs 70,000 a pop, or closer to 50k when buying 1000+ installations. In 2009, BSNL will give you a DSL connection in all small towns for under Rs 5000. In 2006, you could not buy a low power PC along with a service contract. All PCs with hardware support consumed 200 watts or more. In 2009, you can buy a netbook running well under 40W for half the price of a PC and not even need a UPS. Whoever starts early stands to lose a lot, so there's intense pressure to either recover from the market or to delay launch. All this, when the financial markets still had money on offer. Then the recession hit. I haven't been reading the news since. On 9/8/09, Vickram Crishna <[email protected]> wrote: > History Lesson: > The Mission 2007 initiative was floated in 2005, and quickly found support > from 'Green Revolution' MS Swaminathan, who is concerned about the lack of > 'connection' between the farming sector and urban India. MSSRF supported > meetings of potential stakeholders and enthusiasts, held in different parts > of India, leading up to a formulation of a broad plan for driving > connectivity within rural India by Independence Day 2007*. > Back-of-the-envelope calculations put the cost at around Rs 6,300 cr, that > would deliver connectivity to at least one node within each of India's > 640,000 revenue villages. It was a totally FOSS-based plan. > *60 years after Independence was declared, a date that had meaning for some > of us > > The government responded with alacrity, immediately squashing all hopes of > anything sensible happening. As of now, the 'project' has been handed over > to IL&FS, which took a year or more of private consultations (ie, excluding > anyone from M2k7) to devise a curious tiered arrangement that would > supervise the formation of so-called CSCs (community service centers). > > This plan is very inclusive, incorporating as it does a GoM project that was > announced as a knee-jerk reaction to M2k7, from out of the MoCIT (the name > of the Ministry keeps changing, depending I think on which of Karunanidhi's > family members is appointed Minister). Every so often, one sees press > releases announcing that 5,000 telecenters have been set up here or 10,000 > there. They no longer talk about Mission 2007, just in case you were > wondering. > > Oh yes, and in case you also wonder, the target has moved down to 100,000, > which happened after then NASSCOM chief Kiran Karnik volunteered to > negotiate the funds from the government (in his capacity as creator of the > NASSCOM Foundation). I don't think there is a target date anymore, but that > may be just me being a bit cynical. > > MSSRF still supports the training of rural leaders (Jawaharlal Nehru > Fellows) who will help integrate any such initiatives, if and when these > happen. However, I have no idea whether the IL&FS CSCs recognise such > trained people. It hardly matters, because MSSRF's intention in training for > rural leadership was to assist such initiatives to be grown upwards form > locally expressed needs. > > On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 1:56 PM, jtd <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Sunday 06 September 2009, Vickram Crishna wrote: >> >> > In fact, and this may be a very serious reason to join hands, digitising >> > with FOSS tools and creating open standard documents online for access >> > is >> > in itself a way to forestall some 'public-private-partnership' from >> > doing >> > the same with proprietary formats. There are several such schemes >> floating >> > about already, beginning with the tatters of the Mission 2007 >> > initiative. >> >> Please excuse my ignorance but What is Mission 2007 initiative? >> >> >> -- >> Rgds >> JTD >> _______________________________________________ >> network mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in >> > > > > -- > Vickram > http://communicall.wordpress.com > -- Kiran Jonnalagadda http://jace.zaiki.in/ _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
