e-Business and Enterprise, Finalists 2012

In 2007-08 Khadi and Village Industries Commission under the government of India has assigned a village industries cluster to the Tripura Bamboo and Cane Development Centre (TRIBAC) a community based organization in Tripura. During the implementation of the cluster development initiative, it was found that most of the cluster based small entrepreneurs could not access the services of the common facility centre. Moreover, they are also facing the problems accessing important market information along with problems related to the timely procurement of raw materials (bamboo and Jiggat) from theJoint Forest Management Committee (JFMCs) which causes delays in the supply of the finished goods to the buyers and the corresponding price negotiations. The piloting of the mobile phones network within the cluster has solved these problems, leaving a deep impact on the successful management of enterprises and the development of sustainable long term livelihood solutions. The community cluster enterprises have been linked with mobile phone inventory system, which runs by TRIBAC.

The project uses Behavior Change Intervention (BCI) strategies to diffuse ICT in rural areas with rural micro-finance institutions (MFI) so that members of the MFI have access to ICT enabled services. Providing computers and access to Internet to rural communities alone will not develop a sustained positive attitude to adopt ICT, let alone to adopt it for the purpose of socio-economic development within the community. Aiming at altering the existing situation the company, Magnus Consulting Group Pvt. Ltd, developed a user friendly financial software in local language (Nepali) to motivate MFI’s to adopt the use of the software (named Simple Finance). Even complete computer illiterates who have never used computers in life are now able to manage the institution more efficiently for example related to the administering of the fiscal year-end closing.