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The Indian government is considering plans to give millions of mobile phones to its poorest families to help lift them from penury.
Officials believe the scheme, called *Har Hath Mein Mobile*, or A Mobile in Every Hand, could revolutionise government services to the poor by offering more than 200 million people without phone connections access to banking services and information sites which could help boost their incomes. They also believe it could help protect their state benefits from corrupt civil servants.
Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a senior advisor to India's prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh confirmed the idea was aimed the millions of poor families in rural India.
Telecom ministry officials told industry figures the scheme will cost just under a billion pounds and will initially be targeted at six million 'below poverty level' families living on less than £63 per month. It is expected to feature in the Congress-led government's manifesto for the 2014 election campaign.
The scheme has been partly inspired by Kenya's M-PESA mobile phone banking system which enables poor people to transfer money and receive payments via sms text messages. Similar schemes in India have been hampered because millions have no official identity documentation.
The Mobile in Every Hand Scheme however will benefit from the government's ambitious unique identification project to record the biometric details of every Indian and issue them a secure number to help them access government services online. More than 200 million people have already been given new ID numbers.
India has undergone a mobile phone revolution in the last decade with cheap Chinese-made mobile phones and 'pay as you go' services encouraging millions of poor rickshaw pullers and domestic servants to subscribe.
Despite chronic electricity shortages, more than three-quarters of its 1.2 billion people have mobile phones and use them to boost their incomes.
Rickshaw pullers have established cellphone booking services in some cities, while small-holders use them to get text message weather forecasts which have helped boost crops.
Telecommunications analyst Anil Kumar, who runs the independent Telecom Watchdog, said government officials had discussed the scheme with him and that they expected it to be operational by the end of 2013 just as election campaigning begins. "The idea is give all below the poverty line a mobile handset with 200 free talk minutes. They have yet to work out the details, but 2014 is an election year and it will take a year to invite tenders. It is mainly a political matter for them," he said.
Anti-poverty campaigners gave the proposals a mixed reception, welcoming it as an "empowering move" but also complaining that more pressing priorities had been overlooked. "We have already been tagged as a nation with more mobile phones than toilets. Basic facilities like health care and food security should be available to poor people before planning to give them mobile phones," said Harsh Mandar, activist and Supreme court's special commissioner for the Right to Food.
Professor Anil Gupta, one of India's leading experts on 'frugal innovations' for the poor, said the proposal was "potentially revolutionary" and could help reduce corruption.
"It could be used for mobile banking. Camera phones could be used to record whether [government school] teachers come to school every day a way of monitoring the bureaucracy. People could use them to create markets for things they have to sell," he said.
India to trigger economic boom by giving mobiles to the poor - Telegraph
Officials believe the scheme, called *Har Hath Mein Mobile*, or A Mobile in Every Hand, could revolutionise government services to the poor by offering more than 200 million people without phone connections access to banking services and information sites which could help boost their incomes. They also believe it could help protect their state benefits from corrupt civil servants.
Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a senior advisor to India's prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh confirmed the idea was aimed the millions of poor families in rural India.
Telecom ministry officials told industry figures the scheme will cost just under a billion pounds and will initially be targeted at six million 'below poverty level' families living on less than £63 per month. It is expected to feature in the Congress-led government's manifesto for the 2014 election campaign.
The scheme has been partly inspired by Kenya's M-PESA mobile phone banking system which enables poor people to transfer money and receive payments via sms text messages. Similar schemes in India have been hampered because millions have no official identity documentation.
The Mobile in Every Hand Scheme however will benefit from the government's ambitious unique identification project to record the biometric details of every Indian and issue them a secure number to help them access government services online. More than 200 million people have already been given new ID numbers.
India has undergone a mobile phone revolution in the last decade with cheap Chinese-made mobile phones and 'pay as you go' services encouraging millions of poor rickshaw pullers and domestic servants to subscribe.
Despite chronic electricity shortages, more than three-quarters of its 1.2 billion people have mobile phones and use them to boost their incomes.
Rickshaw pullers have established cellphone booking services in some cities, while small-holders use them to get text message weather forecasts which have helped boost crops.
Telecommunications analyst Anil Kumar, who runs the independent Telecom Watchdog, said government officials had discussed the scheme with him and that they expected it to be operational by the end of 2013 just as election campaigning begins. "The idea is give all below the poverty line a mobile handset with 200 free talk minutes. They have yet to work out the details, but 2014 is an election year and it will take a year to invite tenders. It is mainly a political matter for them," he said.
Anti-poverty campaigners gave the proposals a mixed reception, welcoming it as an "empowering move" but also complaining that more pressing priorities had been overlooked. "We have already been tagged as a nation with more mobile phones than toilets. Basic facilities like health care and food security should be available to poor people before planning to give them mobile phones," said Harsh Mandar, activist and Supreme court's special commissioner for the Right to Food.
Professor Anil Gupta, one of India's leading experts on 'frugal innovations' for the poor, said the proposal was "potentially revolutionary" and could help reduce corruption.
"It could be used for mobile banking. Camera phones could be used to record whether [government school] teachers come to school every day a way of monitoring the bureaucracy. People could use them to create markets for things they have to sell," he said.
India to trigger economic boom by giving mobiles to the poor - Telegraph
