A STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF

DIGITALISATION IN RURAL
AREAS

S. NO. NAMES ENROLLMENT NO. ROLL NO.

1 AVADH AGRAWAL PG19018 2
2 HARSHITA KHADAYTE PG19042 50
3 RISHAB BAID PG19108 34
4 SALONI CHECHANI PG19116 21
5 SHIVANGI UPADHYAY PG19122 40
6 VRINDA RATHI PG19143 48

DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT FOR THE AWARD

OF POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT BY

UNITEDWORLD SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

GANDHINAGAR, GUJARAT -382422

(PGDM 2019-2021)

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 DECLARATION

We hereby certify that we are the author of this report and that neither any part of this
research survey nor the whole of the survey has been submitted for a degree to any other
University or Institution. We certify that, to the best of our knowledge, our report does not
infringe upon anyone’s copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that any ideas,
techniques, quotations, or any other material from the work of other people included in our
report, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard
referencing practices. Furthermore, to the extent that we have included copyrighted
material that surpasses the bounds of fair dealing within the meaning of the Indian
Copyright Act, we certify that we have obtained a written permission from the copyright
owner(s) to include such material(s) in our report and have included copies of such
copyright clearances to our appendix. We declare that this is a true copy of our report,
including any final revisions, as approved by our report review committee.

Date: 28/03/2020

Place: AHMEDABAD

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 Certificate

This is to certify that research survey work entitled “A STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF
DIGITALISATION ON RURAL AREAS” is an original work carried out by “AVADH AGRAWAL,
HARSHITA KHADAYTE, RISHAB BAID, SALONI CHECHANI, SHIVANGI UPADHYAY, VRINDA
RATHI” in partial fulfilment for the award of Research survey of Post graduate in diploma
management, Karnavati University, Dist.:, A/907, Uvarsad-Adalaj Road At. & Po.: Uvarsad,
Gandhinagar, Gujarat 382422. The project report has been approved as it satisfies the
academic requirements in respect of research survey work prescribed for the Post graduate
in diploma management from Research of Business Decision.

Date: 28/03/2020

Place: AHMEDABAD

Dr. KAVITHA JOSHI

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

Ph.D, M.Phil, MBA (Finance), BCom.

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 ABSTRACT

On July1, Indian Prime Minister inaugurated digital India week. Digitalisation has been a part
of technological revolution we have been witnessing over the last couple of decades. It is
converting today’s society to a highly networked society. This digitalisation wave is likely to
result in political ,social and economic transformations of various countries. In most
countries, now also the struggle is going on to adjust or to fit themselves with the changes
happening with respect to digitalisation. The major challenges are illiteracy, poverty,
unemployment, health care and now development induced environmental degradation.This
research gives an overview of how digitalisation made an impact on the people those who
are living in backward and rural areas. This has often been argued that the digitalisation will
revolutionaries the lives of the people in India. However, this study shows that these
policies and implementations relating to digitalisation does not became very essential in the
lives of the people residing in rural areas. Authors make use of digitalisation as a great
success in their papers but it immensely failed in backward areas. People are not ready to
accept the changes relating to technology, plastic money, and wallet money. They are still
living in the phase or era of currency notes. Talking in the overall context, the study does
not limit itself upto the use of money but also in various sectors such as education, banking,
e commerce, etc. Does it really positively impacted the rural areas? This very relevant
question is the focus of the report.

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 Acknowledgement

Foremost, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to our guide Dr. Kavitha Joshi for
the continuous support of our project study and research, for her patience, motivation,
enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. Her guidance helped us in all the time of research
and writing of this report. We could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor
for our research study. We would like to express endless gratitude to “Our Parents” who
gave us everything they could to enable us to reach the highest possible education level. We
only hope that they know how their love, support and patience encouraged us to fulfil their
dream. We would like to thanks all people who have helped and inspired us during our
research Report study.

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 Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................7

NEED FOR THIS STUDY ....................................................................8

OBJECTIVES ………………………………………………………………………………...8

HYPOTHESIS ………………………………………………………………………………..8

METHODOLOGY …………………………………………………………………………..9

TOOLS FOR DATA COLLECTION……………………………………………………10

LIMITATIONS DURING DATA COLLECTION…………………………………..10

LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................11

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION……………………………………….12

SUGGESTIONS AND COCLUSIONS………………………………………………..19

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 INTRODUCTION
It is a well-known fact that digital India is the outcome of many innovations and
technological advancements. These transform the lives of people in many ways and will
empower the society in a better manner. The 'Digital India' programmes an initiative of
honorable Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, will emerge new progressions in every sector
and generates innovative Endeavour’s for next generations. The motive behind the concept
is to build participative, transparent and responsive system. The Digital India drive is a
dream project of the Indian Government to remodel India into a knowledgeable economy
and digitally empowered society, with good governance for citizens by bringing
synchronization and co-ordination in public accountability, digitally connecting and
delivering the government programs and services to mobilize the capability of information
technology across government departments. Today, every nation wants to be fully
digitalized and this programme strives to provide equal benefit to the user and service
provider. Hence, an attempt has been made in this paper to understand Digital India-as a
campaign where technologies and connectivity will come together to make an impact on all
aspects of governance and improve the quality of life of citizens. Digital India is a campaign
launched by the Government of India to ensure that Government services are made
available to citizens electronically by improved online infrastructure and by increasing
Internet connectivity or by making the country digitally empowered in the field of
technology. It was launched on 1 July 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The initiative
includes plans to connect rural areas with high-speed internet networks. Digital India
consists of three core components. These include: The creation of digital infrastructure,
Delivery of services digitally and Digital literacy.

The vision is centered on three key areas: creation of digital infrastructure, delivery of
governance and services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens. Digital India
program will focus on restructuring several existing schemes to bring in a transformational
impact. The vision of the programme aims to transform India into a digitally-empowered
society and knowledge economy through infrastructural reforms such as highspeed internet
in all gram panchayats, lifelong digital identification for citizens, mobile banking for all, easy
access to Common Service Centre (CSC), shareable private spaces on an easily accessible
public Cloud and cyber-security. The programme will also ensure that all government
services and information are available anywhere, anytime, on any device that is easy-to-use,
seamless, highly-available and secured. It is one of the step by the government to motivate
and connect Indian Economy to a knowledge savvy world. The Programme symbolizes the
Government of India’s vision for connecting and empowering 125crore citizens; creating
unprecedented levels of transparency and accountability in governance; and leveraging
technology for quality education, health care, farming, financial inclusion and empowering
citizens. Under the „Digital India‟ Programme, technology will play a central role to achieve
easy, effective and economical governance.

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IMPORTANCE / NEED FOR THE STUDY

1. Increase in Employment Opportunities: First and foremost benefit of digitalization is

increase in employment opportunities in rural areas.

2. Improvement in standard of Living: The second benefit is the improvement in standard

of living of the people by improving their income. Large numbers of people are getting
benefitted by these facilities.
3. Reduction in Risk and Uncertainty: Rural community is making full use of available
techniques and is reducing risk and uncertainty by getting market information online.
4. Increasing e-literacy in rural areas: Large number of rural youth is getting training in
using computers, MS Office and Internet. Internet
Kiosks are conducting educational and training programs for rural youth. Under various
programs large number of rural youth is being trained through village knowledge centres.
5. Increasing awareness about Spoken English: Rural people have become aware of
importance of spoken English, since English is the main language required for Internet.

OBJECTIVES

 To study the impact of digital India programme on the upliftment of Indian rural
economy.
 To study how Digital India programme will lead to empowerment of rural
entrepreneurship in the country.
 To study the impact of digital India programme on the empowerment of rural
women.
 To study that there exist any upliftment of the overall society which includes the
knowledge and awareness of the people with respect to digitalization.

HYPOTHESIS OF THE RESEARCH

The term “digitalization” is used by many, but with various implications. People usually refer
to digitalization as a process where communities get access to (high‐speed) Internet.
However, the concept goes further than broadband and Internet connectivity. For this resea
rch it is defined through the aspects:
1) Broadband access and high‐speed Internet,

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2) Adaptation of digital technologies.
3) The combination of the data that is produced to create smart solutions. And this is all acc
ompanied by the change of minds of allthe
participants on how to use digital tools and integrate them into their daily lives.
4)The structuring hypothesis of the research is that the employment of digital possibilities m
ust be viewed with a holistic approach.Not only the infrastructure broadband but also tools,
skills, inspiration, imagination, and some sort of encouraging structure are needed to adapt
and empower through digitalization. The hypothesis are:

H0: There is a positive impact of digitalization on the rural areas.

H1: There is a negative impact of digitalization on the rural areas.

METHODOLOGY
This study attempts to explain the impact of digitization on the development of Rural India.
It is based on

 Study design- The study is based on understanding the use of digital technology in
rural economy and its impact on rural crowd. It basically wants to understand in long
run how this traditional era was shifted to digital era.

 Study area- Rural area of AHMEDABAD where most of the respondents were of
SANAND area.

 Study population-The population of our study will consist of men, women, adult,
elderly and different sectors of society and will try to understand the impact of
digital shift in rural area as whole.

 Duration of study-2-4 weeks

 Sampling size- 31 which includes people of different occupations.

 Sampling techniques- Simple random sampling.

 Sources of Data:

1. Primary Data:
Consumer survey on Digital India

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TOOLS OF DATA COLLECTION
A researcher requires many data – gathering tools or techniques. Tests are the tools of
measurement and it guides the researcher in data collection and also in evaluation. Tools
may vary in complexity, interpretation, design and administration. Each tool is suitable for
the collection of certain type of information.

One has to select from the available tools those which will provide data he seeks for testing
hypothesis. It may happen that existing researcher should modify them or construct his
own.

Tools which used for data collection:

1. Questionnaire survey: (not self administered because of low literacy rate)

 A structured and questionnaire designed specifically for capturing the required
data has been used in this study. The said questionnaire has been designed in
such a way that the variable identified in the literature review have been
considered and incorporated.
 We kept a few personal questions, like Name, Gender and Occupation.
 There were various factors such as: reach, awareness, knowledge, usage.
 We made sure that there exist no difficulty by filling the questionnaire
ourselves asking them as there is a high illiteracy level. Only the people who
were on the occupation of general physian and some retailers, were only able
to fill the questionnaire.

Limitations during data collection

 Some people ignored answering few questions during data collection.
 The lack of time to carry out a survey.
 It involved a lot of time consumption for analyzing each data.
 It made difficult for the people who were less educated to respond.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW

1) Gupta and Arora (2015) studied the impact of digital India project on rural sector of India.
The study found that many schemes have been launched in digital India to boost agriculture
sector and entrepreneurship development in rural areas. Digital India programme has also
set the stage for empowerment of rural Indian women.
-HARSHITA KHADAYTE

2) Rani Suman (2016) concluded that the digital India project provides a huge opportunity to
use the latest technology to redefine India the paradigms of service industry. It also pointed
out that many projects may require some transformational process, reengineering,
refinements to achieve the desired service level objectives.
-VRINDA RATHI

3) Midha Rahul (2016) concluded that digital India is a great plan to develop India for
knowledge future but its improper implementation due to inaccessibility and inflexibility to
requisite can lead to its failure.
Though digital India programme is facing number of challenges yet if properly implemented
it can make the best future of every citizen. So we Indians should work together to shape
the knowledge economy.
-RISHAB BAID

4) In 2017, Tukesh Kumar, ShwatiPrdhi and Abhay Bisen conducted a study about the role of
digital India in Rural part of country. Digital India has introduced various schemes to
enhance rural industry.CSC (Common service Centre’s), MUDRA yojana etc. are some kind of
schemes.
Author concluded that High speed internet facility, financial inclusion, e-banking, e-
governance, digital locker system, e-education, e-health etc, are the outcome of digital
India.
-AVADH AGRAWAL

5) Chiranjib Kumar Basu and Shyamal Majumdar (2009) - The focus of this study is on rural
development and poverty alleviation in developing countries, which is one of the greatest
challenges for the international community inthe twenty-first century. Information and
communication technologies (ICTs) and technical and vocational education and training
(TVET) can play very important roles in meeting these challenges.
-SHIVANGI UPADHYAY

6) In 2018, Raghavendra Nayak conducted a study to find issues and challenges in rural India
after digitalization in banking. Author in his study found that there are multiple issues in the
way of implementation of digitalization in rural India like literacy, infrastructural issues, less
uses of smart phone by rural people, banking habits of rural people, customer perception
towards technologybased banking etc.
-SALONI CHECHANI

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 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

1)Gender

Particular MALE FEMALE

Responses 22 9

Responses

29%
MALE
71% FEMALE

Interpretation:

There were total of 31 responses. Out of which 71%, i.e. 22 were Male whereas 29%, i.e.
9 were female.

2) Are you aware of the Digitalization concept/ Digital India?

Particular YES NO MAYBE

Responses 26 3 2

0%
0%

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Interpretation:

Out of the 31 respondents, 84% of them were aware about the digitalisation concept,
whereas 10% were not aware and the rest 6% were not sure.

3) How did you become aware about the concept?

Particular PHONE TV NEWSPAPER OTHER

Responses 16 6 6 3

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0

Interpretation:

Out of the 31 respondents, 16 of them came to know about digitalisation through their
mobile phones, 6 from Television, 6 from Newspapers and the rest i.e. 3 from other sources.

4) Did you understand the digital India concept?

Particular YES NO
Responses 24 7

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 0%

Interpretation:

Out of 31 respondents, 24 i.e 77% understand the Digital India concept whereas, 7 i.e 23%,
do not understand the digital india concept.

5) Do you have the required documents to use the digital services?

Particular YES NO
Responses 21 10

Responses

19%

Excellent

81% Good

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Interpretation:

Out of the 31 respondents, 21 i.e 68% of the total sample, were having the documents
related to the use of digital services. Whereas 10 i.e. 32% did not carry the required
documents for the services.

6) Do you have proper knowledge to use various Digital Platforms?

Particular YES NO MAYBE

Responses 9 6 16

Responses

13% 16%
Excellent
Good
71% Poor

Interpretation:
Out of the 31 respondents, only 29% i.e. 9 were having proper knowledge of the digital
platforms. 6 i.e. 19% did not have any knowledge at all. Whereas 29% were not sure about
there knowledge towards digital platforms.

7) Did the Digitalization concept help you in uplifting your standard of living?

Particular YES NO
Responses 17 14

Responses

19%
Excellent

81% Good

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 Interpretation:
Out of the 31 respondents, 17 i.e 55% agrees that digitalisation is helping in the upliftment
of standard of living whereas the rest 14 i.e. 45% were against this statement.

8) Did you ever benefit from using any of the apps?

Particular YES NO
Responses 25 6

Responses

19%

Excellent

81% Good

Interpretation:

Out of the 31 respondents, 25 i.e. 81% have taken some sort of benefit from the apps,
whereas the rest 19% i.e 6 respondents never used such app.

9) How do you find the security of the online services

Particular Highly Secure Somewhat Secure Unsecure

Responses 10 15 6

Responses

13% 16%
Excellent
Good
71% Poor

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 Interpretation:
Out of the 31 respondents, 10 i.e. 32% felt digital online services highly secure, 15 i.e. 49%
found it somewhat secure, whereas, 6 i.e. 19% found it unsecure.

10) What rating would you like to give to the Digitalization concept

Particular Excellent Good Poor

Responses 5 22 4

Responses

13% 16%
Excellent
Good
71% Poor

Interpretation:
Out of the 31 respondents, 5 i.e. 16% found the digitalisation concept excellent, 22 i.e.
71% found it good whereas, 4 i.e. 13% found the concept poor.

11) How was your experience from accessing the online services if used any?

Particular Satisfactory Neutral Dissatisfactory

Responses 11 16 4

Responses

19%
PayTM
12%
69% PhonePe
BHIM

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Interpretation:

Out of the 31 respondents, 11 i.e. 35% were having satisfactory experience by using the
digital services, 15 i.e. 52% had neutral response whereas 4 i.e. 13% had dissatisfactory
experience.

12) Of the various modes, which one would you likely opt for?

Particular PayTM PhonePe BHIM Google Pay

Responses 11 2 3 15

Responses

15

10

0
PayTM PhonePe BHIM Google Pay

Interpretation:

Out of the 31 respondents, 11 were likely to opt for Paytm, 2 were for PhonePe, 3 were for
Bhim, whereas 15 were for GooglePay.

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 SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

SUGGESTIONS:
1. Government’s role in Digital India
Private players are doing great. However, they cannot be fully depended to fulfil
social commitment especially in areas where revenue potential is low making
Government’s role important and un-avoidable. The government should come out
with some sort of policies relating to digitalisation, through which there could be
more awareness, more knowledge and leading to more transparency of transactions.

2. Digital program need to take on with pragmatic approach

There is nothing known as perfect in planning. Technology is changing fast. What is
good today may become obsolete later. It will take quite many years for 65000
villages in India networked with redundant and fail proof of cables connectivity.
Probable that the technology will undergo changes by then and the effort would go
waste. Pragmatic approach will be to take on digitalization wherever eco system
needed is readily available by rolling out features, products and services for financial
inclusion and inclusive growth in urban and semi-urban areas and towns and villages
and then grow towards remotely rural areas in a phased manner. The way forward is
to keep in mind that telecom growth in rural and remote areas shall happen hand in
hand with improvement of overall eco system and basic standard of living.

3. Cloud Computing, reach of Internet servers to the rural areas

There are no two opinions that INTERNET is the best thing that happened in the
technology space. Openness is its greatest merit. However, being come into
existence as a by chance with no regulatory controls in place. Internet is slowly
turning boon to bane in many counts, security is one among those. Future wars may
not be with guns and bombs but in the cyber space that can paralyse any country in
no time. Also the safety is the foremost concern of people who do not have much
knowledge in that particular area.

4. Various grievances to be set up in rural areas

As the security is the major concern of people, one should take care to overcome
this problem firstly. Therefore, government or various private organisation should
take care of this concern as it is a very serious issue. Not only in villages, people in

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 urban areas also need various grievances where their problems relating to the frauds
and defaults can be solved.

CONCLUSION:
Most of the people are aware of Digital India. From the survey, we have concluded that
Digital India Project will definitely uplift the standard of living. People want to live in a
digitalized city as it will provide better lifestyle through digital services. Rural area people
will also be able to adopt the digital changes only if government of India will provide the
proper training and digital literacy. Without a proper digital training it will be difficult for the
Indians to get comfortable with digital changes in the country. Digital India will be providing
lots of job opportunities and will help in reducing unemployment from the country. Service
sector will also undergo vast change as people will able to get all the work done digitally.

The time taken to complete each task will reduce to minimum. It is possible that after
digitalization, there will be Net-Zero imports in the economy by 2020. GDP of country will
also be affected by this project. This project will definitely bring prosperity and up gradation
to country but certain drawbacks are there as it is fully related to technology. Security may
become the matter of concern. Other than this, the error in the system may be lead to a
serious problem. People have lots of expectations towards this project. Government of India
has to stand upon the expectations.

Major concerns are:

 Awareness
 Knowledge of various platforms
 Use of various platforms
 Wide reach
 Security
 Internet connectivity

Therefore, these concerns are to be taken care of in order to uplift the overall rural areas of
the country.

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