Cybercafes in the Thar desert
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COMMENTS 
Computer training centres are sprouting all over rural India. A momentous transformation of India's rural economy is imminent.
Your lips are chapping, and your head droops from the hot and dry loo wind that slaps your face relentlessly through the drive. The open jeep pulls up to a chai shop in Shekavati-Ramgarh, about three hours northwest of Jaipur, a dusty, sand-encircled town on the edge of the Thar desert. After a few chilled Thums-Ups you are sufficiently rejuvenated to begin asking the owner about cybercafes, computer training centres and the like. Right next door, he points, is a Compucom franchisee.
We introduce ourselves to Vijay Sharma sitting at the desk who then takes us over to the main centre just around the corner and down the alley. Sharma has a computer science degree from Jaipur, and started this business with his bade bhaisaheb over a year ago. They have about 30 to 40 students at the moment, pursuing certificates in C++ and computer applications. They expect their students to find work as computer operators all over the small towns of Rajasthan, or even to migrate to Jaipur, New Delhi, Bangalore and beyond. The brothers had wanted to operate a cybercafe at their smaller shop, but the connectivity was atrocious: first they had a VSNL connection, then they tried Satyam, then they tried DoT, and even the local Rajasthan provider Datainfosys, but you just couldn't rely on the connection for more than a few minutes.
How many other computer training centres are there in this town? Another four, for a total of five! And how many such centres were there all across the district? No one has conducted a thorough survey, but a guesstimate puts the number at about 100. That too in a thoroughly unremarkable ! section of Shekavati off the tourist trail, half of which consists of arid lands tending to complete desert. The plethora of these computer centres in semi-rural parts of Rajasthan is perhaps the best indication that a momentous transformation in India's rural economy is imminent. These centres are already churning out computer-operators every day. In order to really raise the quality and level of their education, however, they await ubiquitous and reliable Internet connectivity.