Analyzing Government Policies to Bridge Digital Divide in India Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the digital divide in India, examining its background, significance, and the methodologies used to study it. It explores the government's initiatives, such as Kissan call centers, Life Line India, Bhoomi project, and e-governance projects, to bridge the digita...Read More

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Part A
Abstract
Title: How effective government policies can help bridge the digital divide: A case of India.
Background of the research:
Digital divide refers to the presence of the disparity that exist between different countries related
to the occurrence of gap exist in the pace of development in society to have an access to digital
infrastructure and services. Digital divide refers to a significant barrier that exists between
technological infrastructure. For the purpose of overcoming such barriers, there is an existence of
8 C’s which results in attaining success in the internet economy like connectivity, content,
capacity, community and capital. There is an extensive use of the information technology by the
manufacturers and retailers for the purpose of analyzing and storing relevant information related
to different business processes and to maintain low inventory levels which in turn results in
attaining high level of customer satisfaction and to remain competitive in the market (Economist
Intelligence Unit, 2012).
There is a negative impact on the economic development due to presence of lack of digital
literacy among the people of the country. The main reason behind it is that there is an increased
use of the internet for the purpose of gaining information related to the availability of different
job opportunities and other information related to the occurrence of different events at different
parts of the world. For the purpose of bridging the digital divide in India, government has taken
initiatives such as Life Line India and Kissan call center to provide literacy to people of the
country regarding the use of digital technology. This has helped in developing different skills
that are required by the individuals to make a use of digital technologies (Panda, Chhatar and
Mharana, 2013).

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Significance of the study
It is significant for the students as it helps in enhancing their knowledge regarding the concept of
digital divide and the efforts made by the government to bridge the digital divide in an effective
manner in India. Along with this, it also provides information related to the challenges faced by
the government to overcome the problem of bridging the digital divide in the country. Along
with this, it is also useful for the future researchers as it helps in framing the background for their
research (Mishra and Srivastava, 2016).
Methodology
For the purpose of collecting the relevant information related to the research topic, mixed
method will be used i.e. combination of primary and secondary sources of data collection. In
context to this, literature review method and interview method will be used. Interview method
will be used to collect the information at first hand from the people indulged in the
implementation of the initiatives related to assess the effectiveness of the government policies
implemented to bridge digital divide in the country (Groat and Wang, 2013). Along with this, the
sample size will be 65 respondents who are indulged in the initiatives taken by the government
for reducing the digital divide. The use of literature review method helps in collecting
information related to the research topic from the available literary sources such as books,
scholarly articles, and online articles and authorized documents (McNabb, 2015). Along with
this, multi-modal analysis method is used for gaining information related to the research topic.
This method facilitates in the interpretation of the language used in wide range of modes of
communication and representation such as aural, gesture, gaze, visual and spatial modes of
communication and relationship between them (Gifford, 2016).
Part B

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Research Method
Background
The government has taken several initiatives for bridging the digital divide in India. The ministry
of agriculture has launched Kissan call centers in the year 2004 for the purpose of providing
solutions to the problems faced by farmers in an instant manner. This service is provided to
farmers for 24*7. For the promotion of human rights and sustainable development a charitable
organization has been opened by the government of named Life Line India in the year 2006. This
organization provides a service of recording the question by the farmers through telephone for
which they receive a recorded answer from the organization. This has been extended to
approximately 700 villages and each day on an average 350 calls is received by the organization.
In order to resolve the queries of the farmers a frequently asked questions database is created by
the organization. This helps in resolving the problems in a quick manner (Venkatesh, Sykes, and
Venkatraman, 2012).
In addition to this, Bhoomi project is created by Karnataka government that covers
approximately 66million of records of land ownership. The data bank created under this project
is used in various public and private organizations. Besides this, the other initiatives taken by the
government in order to bridge the digital divide in the country includes Gyandoot project,
Toarahat project, CARD project, Sourkaryan and E-seva and Friends Project (Mishra and
Srivastava, 2016).
The Friends project is being launched by the government of Kerela. This project helps in
elimination of the middleman to overcome the hardship of the citizens for making the payment
of the taxes. It is a centralized collection center that accepts payments of all types of tax and

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utility in order to create value for the citizens of the state. This project has served approximately
13 million people in 12 districts of Kerela (Srivastava and Shainesh, 2015).
Along with this, the government has also created community information centers for the purpose
of rural development. The government make a use of e-mail and internet for communicating
information with state and district officers. In addition to this, the government has also launched
an e-chaupal project which is popular in the rural areas of India to provide information related to
different crops and its prices in the market to farmers in their local languages (Hoque, Parker,
Covaleski and Haynes, 2017).
Significance
This research study is important as it provides the information related to the reasons behind the
occurrence of the digital divide in the country. It also helps in providing information related to
the concept of digital divide and the challenges faced in bridging the digital divide in the
country. Students and readers also gain information related to the initiatives and efforts made by
the government to bridge the digital divide in the country. Along with this, it also provides
information related to the improvement that has been occurred in the quality of the
communication of the information to the target audience in order to solve their problems in
different business sectors such as agriculture, land ownership and so on in order to improve the
overall productivity and economic development of the country (Economist Intelligence Unit,
2012).
In addition to this, it is helpful for different businesses as they gain knowledge regarding the
policies established and implemented by the government to spread awareness about the
knowledge regarding the sectors to which they are associated which helps in developing their
skills and abilities. This in turn results in improving their productivity and performance. This

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helps in accelerating the economic development of the country. Along with this, it is also
significant for the future researchers which help in the development of the background
information to carry out the research in future (Srivastava and Shainesh, 2015).
Aim
The main aim of the research is to investigate the effectiveness of the implementation of the
policies by the government to bridge the digital divide in the country. In order to attain this aim,
there is a need to attain the following objectives.
 To understand the concept and current scenario of digital divide.
 To investigate the causes of the occurrence of digital divide in the country.
 Examining different efforts and initiatives taken by the government to bridge digital
divide in India.
 To investigate the effectiveness of the policies adopted by the government of India to
bridge digital divide.
Research Question
The question that will be investigated in this research study is ‘How effective government
policies can help bridge the digital divide in India?’
Methods
There is a need to collect the information related to the current scenario of the digital divide in
India along with the initiatives taken by the government to bridge it. The information is collected
by the use of qualitative method such as interview method and literature review method. For this
purpose the information will be collected from 65 respondents that are indulged in the initiatives
taken by the government in order to attain information related to the effectiveness of the
government initiatives towards the digital divide in India. The information is also collected from

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the secondary sources such as books, scholarly articles, online articles and official documents
(Kara, 2015).
The information related to the people being benefited from the initiatives is gathered as it helps
in gaining information related to their contribution towards the economic development of the
country. There is a use of multi-model method which takes into consideration different forms
used to collect information such as textual, linguistic, aural and visual resources for the purpose
of composition of the messages. In this method, the information from the respondents is
collected by the use of different methods to which they are comfortable. This helps in
maintaining the validity and reliability of the results of the research. The use of multi-model
provides an opportunity to the respondents to provide information by the use of different aids in
which they are comfortable. This approach helps in gaining valid and reliable information related
to the research topic (Gifford, 2016).

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References
Economist Intelligence Unit. (2012) Smart policies to close the digital divide. [Online].
Available at:
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un-dpadm/unpan049753.pdf [Accessed
on: 4 October 2017].
Gifford, R. (2016) Research Methods for Environmental Psychology. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Groat, L.N. and Wang, D. (2013) Architectural Research Methods. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Hoque, Z., Parker, L.D., Covaleski, M.A. and Haynes, K. (2017) The Routledge Companion to
Qualitative Accounting Research Methods. UK: Taylor & Francis.
Kara, H. (2015) Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide. USA:
Policy Press.
McNabb, D.E. (2015) Research Methods for Political Science: Quantitative and Qualitative
Methods. UK: Routledge.
Mishra, R. and Srivastava, S. (2016) M-education in India: an effort to improve educational
outcomes with a special emphasis on Ananya Bihar. On The Horizon 24(2), pp. 153-165.
Panda, M.I., Chhatar, M.D.C. and Mharana, D.B. (2013) A brief view to digital divide in Indian
scenario. International Journal of Scientific and Research 3(12), pp. 1-7.
Srivastava, S.C. and Shainesh, G. (2015) Bridging the Service Divide through Digitally Enabled
Service Innovations: Evidence from Indian Healthcare Service Providers. MIS Quarterly 39(1).
Venkatesh, V., Sykes, T.A. and Venkatraman, S. (2012) Understanding e-government portal use
in rural India: role of demographic and personality characteristics. Info System Journal, pp. 1-
24.