Citizen Centric ICT Initiatives for Rural Development in Indian Context: A Framework

Information and Communication technology (ICT) initiatives for rural development in India are not new. Many of these initiatives have shown mixed response. Most of these projects are incubated with government support. A development project to be sustainable, it should move from “supply-driven” concept to “demand driven” (citizen centric). Rural citizens deprived of infrastructural support and opportunity to earn sustainable livelihood, are not capable of leveraging the services created for them. This paper attempts to understand what the citizen-led design process is, the factors contributing to the design process, and then discusses a participatory appraisal tool to create an ambience where citizens assess their requirements and influence the service providers to perpetually create and deliver the required services. A framework is discussed to address these issues through design of metrics. Lastly, relevance of this tool is discussed through an illustrative example which was applied in a village during our study.