Speaking at MediaNama's #NAMA conference during a session on digital in rural, moderated by Kushan Mitra of The Pioneer, S. Sivakumar, Group Head of Agri and IT Businesses for ITC Ltd, and the architect of ITC eChoupal, said that the ecosystem that can put together things in place to trigger digital consumption in rural India is still not in place. Responding to Mitra's question on whether there existed a rural digital Indian, he mentioned that the scenario was akin to being invited to a party but missing it as you don't have appropriate party wear- so there's an opportunity but producers are still not hooked on to it. For rural masses biggest aspiration is to increase income: Sivakumar said that one aspiration that drives lot of consumption of digital technology, among rural citizens, is the desire to have a higher income. He mentioned that the per capita income of the rural Indian is one third of that of the urban Indian. He also gave the example of the need for substituting the lack of cold storage chains in India with connecting markets, to raise income for the farmer, as he gets a better idea of what is in demand and produces to meet the target, and prevent food wastage. He emphasized that digital solutions focused on education and health were long term and that there needs to be a short term way of extending the benefit of technology to farmers. He then gave another example- he said that prices of produce can be lowered…
