Ringing in social good

Once regarded as a yuppie plaything, the mobile phone today, in the words of economist Jeffrey Sachs, “is the single most transformative tool for development”. No other technology has ever been in the hands of so many people in so many countries in such a short period of time.

A number of factors led to this technology becoming a vital tool for empowerment. While handset-makers pushed for scale and slashed prices, service providers aided growth with simple, low denomination, cash-based prepaid billing systems. Together, such efforts dramatically expanded mobile phone penetration, which soon emerged as the single most powerful enabler and equaliser tool, especially in addressing traditional bottlenecks in developing countries.

In fact, Leonard Waverman, chairman of the economics faculty at London Business School, found that with a 10 per cent increase in the penetration of mobile phones there is an addition of 0.6 percentage points to the economic growth rate of a developing country. The World Bank puts the impact at 0.8 percentage points.

In India, according to the UNU-INWEH report 2014, more people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet and good sanitation. More recently, the country witnessed its fastest-ever growth in new mobile phone connections in the third quarter of 2014, with 18 million net additions. Going forward, the technology research and advisory firm Gartner expects the number of mobile connections in the country to grow by 8 per cent to touch 815 million in 2014 from 755 million connections in 2013. This growth underscores the transformation of the mobile phone into a social object; fostering social and behavioural changes and empowering underserved groups, such as women and people below the poverty line.

From Kisan Sanchar, a first-ever interactive platform for farmers bringing them agri-extension information services, to efforts such as E-Mamta, a mother and child tracking system to help reduce infant mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio, India has diverse experiences of and perspectives on using the mobile space for social and behavioural needs in varied contexts. The challenge is to scale up these innovations for greater social and economic impact.

Tata Teleservices and Tata Institute of Social Sciences’ Mobile Multiplier Study shows a clear correlation between mobile phone ownership and both, economic and wider measures of social wellbeing in India. The research reveals that Indian households that own at least one mobile device enjoy 62 per cent higher level of economic prosperity compared to non-mobile-owning households; this premium is even more pronounced with respect to urban communities where mobile phone-owning households are — on average — 85 per cent better off in economic terms. In other words, access to communications boosts incomes and makes local economies far more efficient.

The study also finds that the correlation between mobile phone ownership and prosperity is not limited to purely economic measures. Indian States with higher rates of mobile device per household also tend to enjoy significantly higher levels of social wellbeing, based on Human Development (HDI) indices — a composite measure of life expectancy, educational attainment, and per capita income, particularly within India’s urban communities.

Evidently, the influence of a social object has never been as strong as that of a mobile phone, particularly in the lives of millions at once. With the spread of ‘anywhere, anytime’ communication infrastructures, mobiles have dismantled traditional information hierarchies, which has a ripple effect in terms of social empowerment and inclusive growth. There is now a growing ‘culture of uniformity’ and with increasing adaptation of smartphones, we are only beginning to scratch the surface of all the potential applications and services, such as mobile banking, health and safety initiatives, distribution of public service information, and more. These can truly transform India into a connected knowledge economy.

Educational VAS service such as ‘English on Mobile’, informative service such as Railways Enquiry, rural radio stations on mobiles Kan Khajura Tesan, amongst others, are already delivering critical services to populations in remote areas of the country. Basic healthcare service SPARSH — India’s first sexual and reproductive health services application, delivers advice on puberty, menstruation, pregnancy and contraception. The service disseminates information via interactive voice response (IVR), SMS and Out Call technologies, giving users privacy and providing timely information (critical in life-threatening situations). Live counselling allows users to discuss personal issues with qualified counsellors in 10 locations in India.

Delivering financial services too is becoming a reality in a country where the majority of villages do not have easy access to a bank. mRupee, is a Reserve Bank of India approved semi-closed and secure prepaid wallet that enables financial transactions in a convenient, electronic form. It is a self-sustaining model for the entire ecosystem that includes customers, retailers, merchants and banks.

Over the years, it has become evident that the power of mobile phones is leapfrogging with the progression of technology and communication. It is thus even more crucial to continue with critical interventions at the grassroots level — transcending poverty, race and economics to impact the lives of people across the nation.

The second wave of the mobile revolution in India has already begun. However, it will reach its full potential only if access can be extended even further and deeper. This will require mobile operators to ingrain deeper and wider with the community.

Going forward, this makes public investment and public-private partnerships increasingly essential to further extend connectivity, services and information access. Wider appreciation of the social impact of mobile devices in the country will galvanise a larger set of content and service providers and fuel a true revolution. These factors once synchronised, will lead to a much greater impact on our society and country for a truly empowered and enabled citizenry.

The writer is the president (mobility) of Tata Teleservices Limited

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