Successful ICT Initiatives for Rural Development in Indian Context: A Beneficiary Centered IS Approach

Rural ICT initiatives in India are not a new phenomenon. Identifying the performance attributes of these initiatives and preparing a road map for e-governance projects is essential. Any successful ICT initiative should undergo “user-centered design” process. But the real task is to create a useable “demand driven” ICT initiative for the rural sector. Scaling up of these chosen initiatives is an issue that requires support from the beneficiaries in order to reach them in larger scale. Policy with appropriate strategy may lead to better “citizen-centered design” and it is essential for these initiatives to involve beneficiaries in this process. In order to make citizen-centered design responsive, peoples’ perspectives have to be incorporated into the design. PRA is an effective tool to elicit information for ICT initiatives that are truly “demand driven”. In this paper we compare two cases related to e-governance and evaluate these through a citizen-centered design process based framework.