Background
East Champaran is one of the most populous district in India with a population density of 181 inhabitants per square km. As per 2011 census it had a population of 5,082,868 roughly equivalent of the State of Colorado in the US or equivalent of Countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway, or Singapore. It is more populous than countries like New Zealand, Croatia, Costa Rica, or Ireland.
The per capita income of the district is $ 360 per annum (averaged as per State of Bihar's per capita) making it one of the poorest district in the country and also one of the poorest demography across the globe.
The prime source of income of the people is Agriculture, Govt. Services, and Small & Micro Business.
Contrary to general awareness and educational levels, the Teledensity (fixed+mobile telephony penetration) in the area is 196 (more than 195+ connection per 100 population) in the urban and semi- urban areas and close to 40+ ( 40+ connection per 100 population) in rural areas.
Dismal general awareness and proficiency among the polity has created a very high levels of information asymmetry in the area. A large section of population remains uninformed and makes irrational decisions due to limited insights, knowledge, or information about critical aspects and even basic necessities of their day to day life.
Relatively the bigger challenge is not lack of Govt. policy or availability of Govt., Non-profit, or Private services but it is availability of right information to people about service providers within their vicinity. They do not have any option of Googling or Yelping to seek any information about services or service providers.
Examples of Information Asymmetry :
Situation 1
A prospective railway traveler from a remote rural area does not know when would the next train arrive for a given destination at the local railway station (especially when there are unaccounted delays).
How it affects: People wait or are left stranded at a railway station for 3-5 hours while guessing the arrival of next train or leave their rural homes in a mere anticipation of arrival of a train. This entirely disturbs the schedule of underprivileged people, often results in lack of planning, and in most cases impacts daily earnings of lower and lower middle class.
Plausible solution: A personalized call center/mobile app/ website updating people in the real time about the arrival and delays of trains. Someone who cannot access internet can call a dedicated number to get a real time update of any train schedule at the railway station of district headquarter.
Situation 2
Where can I get my child treated for diarrhea ?
How it affects: Without a proper knowledge of a good pediatrician who can diligently cure their child, people end up visiting quacks or wrong medical professionals. Many a time this results in mortality or impairment in children and with limited knowledge about their legal rights, poor people do not even prosecute the offenders.
Plausible solution: A personalized call center/mobile app/ website assisting people in finding or locating a qualified pediatric or a specialized medical professional in their locality.
Where should I send my kids for a college degree ? or How can my children apply for Govt. scholarships or apply for education loans for further education ?
How it affects: Families make uninformed decisions about the education of their kids and this drastically impacts the future of youngsters who end up making a wrong career choice or enroll themselves in an unrecognized educational institution. At times bright kids from lower income groups are denied higher education for the want of requisite financial assistance or scholarships - which many a time is available through Govt. and non-profit run social programs but for which a more proactive, informed, and diligent effort is required at people's end because of the poor service delivery system of institutions.
Plausible solution: An information gateway which gives personalized information about different educational institutions in the vicinity and also across the state. Similarly the website/mobile app/personalized call center informing youngsters about banks in the area where they can seek educational loans. The call center representative would also inform the caller whom to contact for educational loan, and in case the services are not provided by the Bank, whom to complain in the district headquarter.
There are hundreds of similar cases where people would not have basic level of valid information about professionals and institutions in their area and a credible platform through which they can seek information.
The Challenge
We realize that despite a strong presence of mobile telephony in the area, people do not have easy access of internet and even if they have, they do not tend to naturally use it to gather local information. The other challenge is that the local information is nearly non-existent on the web and there is no information gateway like Google, Yelp, Bing, etc. which could disseminate useful and practical localized information to the polity for their day to day needs. - The kind of information which could help them make smart and efficient decisions, and make their life relatively easy going and hassle free.
The Idea
The idea is to create a mobile and a web based information center in East Champaran district in Bihar to primarily deliver information to the polity via a personalized call center, a dedicated information website, and an android mobile application.
Target audience
To a large extent the target audience would be underprivileged people from lower and lower middle class who face a huge challenge in swift decision making for even the most basic things impacting their day to day life.
Geography
The project would be piloted for 3 blocks for the first 2 years, and would be expanded to other areas only if the pilot succeeds. They are: 1. Pakridayal 2. Phenhara 3. Madhuban
Operational Strategy
We would first create a database (Name, Contact, Address, Service Type) of all Professionals (Doctors, Lawyers, Shop Owners, Grain Traders, Servicemen, Veterinary Doctors, Govt. appointed Agricultural aides, Academicians, Teachers, Insurance Agents, Commercial Traders, Agricultural Equipment Providers, etc.) and Institutions (Banks, Hospitals & Clinics, Educational institutions, Government Service Centers, Railway Station, Post Office, Fire Station, Blood Bank, etc) in the above blocks and the district headquarter and categorize them based on the kind of services they are generally available for.
Once the database would be ready, we would map this information so that they can be easily located and identified on the website and on the app. We would also have daily updates for some of these institutions - e.g Availability of blood and platelets in Govt. run hospital.
A very easy to use front end website, an android application, and an operational system for call center agents would be developed where information based on queries can be easily searched and retrieved.
We would also have a dedicated and easy to remember a call center number which people can dial in from their mobile phone to talk to call center agents and seek various kinds of localized information.
The call center agents would be extensively trained for efficient service delivery. They would be motivated to remain empathetic to callers and help them at the earliest by finding information even on other websites and search engines like Google or Bing. They would also dial back incase the information is not readily available. For example: If we do not have any information about a cancer or renal hospital in Delhi where treatment is given free of cost to poor patients in our database, we would call our sources in Delhi, or research on the web, and then return the call to the concerned caller informing him about such a facility in Delhi or any other city.
One of the prerequisites for Call Center agents would be that they would communicate with the callers in the local dialect i.e Bhojpuri.
In addition, we would identify NGOs, Doctors, Lawyers, and Teachers in the cities like Patna, Delhi, Mumbai etc. who would be willing to support people from extremely poor background with their services, and try to connect them with some of our callers in need.
Goal
The goal would be to provide all kinds of local information in the quickest possible manner over phone, website or mobile application and decisively impact the decision making capability of the people.
Ethos
The ethos for service delivery would be: Empathy, Sensitivity, Efficiency, and Conclusive Information.
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