India’s IT sector is growing at a very fast pace but most of the benefits of the IT sector are enjoyed by the urban well off people. The good thing is that he situation is gradually changing. Many Indian villages now have IT facilities. Recently, Bhanegaon, a village in Maharashtra is enjoying the blessing of Information technology. It is called “E-Policing.” The inhabitants of this village can now directly talk to the police, lodge complaints through video conferencing, and email. I am quoting from the report published in BBC:
Until a few weeks ago the village was on the have-not side of the digital divide.
Now some of its 8,000 inhabitants have used computers, e-mailed scanned documents and above all been part of regular video conferencing between the village and the district police headquarters in Nagpur city.
Ravinder Chikle of Bhanegaon took part in a conference call with the police chief, S Yadav and complained about big lorries creating traffic chaos near the village's two schools and endangering children's lives.
Mr Chikle still cannot pronounce "video conferencing", but surprisingly he was at ease with the technology.
This system has been installed in 22 villages. Nagpur district’s police chief S. Yadav said that earlier he used to receive 30-40 complaints but now he receives very few. Till now, the project has shown positive results and Maharashtra state officials are now planning to spread the network all over the state. However, there are some people who is not very optimistic about this new system. Kalpana Upadhayay, a women activist of Nagpur says that women in villages are very much oppressed by their husbands and they are afraid to complain to the police against them.
Maharashtra state has done a great job. Using IT to fight crime saves time and money for both the police and normal people. Not all technologies can provide perfect solution to every one in the society but it is a big step forward. I think Indian government should spend more money to build up such a network all over India so that police can easily check crimes and give punishment to the guilty.
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BBC
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