Out of over one billion Indian population, about 70% live in 600,000 villages. Much of this rural population is isolated in terms of access to information, materials, and markets, despite the strong growth of IT industry in India. The adult literacy rate in India is about 59%. Teledensity (the number of telephone lines per 100 people) is less than 1.5% in rural, while it is more than 15% in urban areas (Rao, 2005). The rural areas are thus relatively disconnected from the national mainstream.
The UN Global e-Government Survey (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2003) provided comparative ranking of countries based to two indicators: e-Readiness and e-Participation. India ranks 87 out of 173 nations in e-Readiness. The E-Readiness of a nation is determined by Web measure index (India rank 32), Telecommunication infrastructure index (India rank 138), and the Human capital index (India rank 146; Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2003). E-Participation index measures 21 citizen informative and participatory services and facilities (India rank 22).
Digital divide is the gap between those who can effectively use new Information & Communication Techniques (ICT) and those who cannot. ICTs remove barriers to information asymmetries and create opportunities for the integration of rural populations in the global marketplace. Many e-Government initiatives that deliver services online in rural areas are being attempted in India in spite of many infrastructure constraints. In this article, we review 15 popular projects that are developed exclusively for rural regions (e-Government Web sites). We assess the status of these projects using an e-Government progression framework, analyze the benefits achieved, and provide recommendations for better utilization of these projects.
1. STATUS OF E-GOVERNMENT PROJECTS
An e-Government status framework is developed (Figure 1) using Watson and Mundy (2003) strategic framework as one dimension (called "design" dimension) and Infodev (2002) implementation phases as the other dimension. The rural e-Government projects are