The technological innovation of the 19th century ‘toy train’ provided a 21st century link between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) centres in the small hill district of Darjeeling in the state of West Bengal, in the north eastern part of India.

As per 2001 census, the total population of Darjeeling was 1,605,900 (826,334 male and 779,566 female). Immigrants from the neighbouring countries and states dominate the population of Darjeeling. The Nepalese community forms the majority of the immigrant population. Nepalese is the official and most used language in the hill parts of the Darjeeling district. It is a land of mixed cultures and religions. Residents of Darjeeling feel that the district is often overlooked by the government and by mainstream development programmes.

Many believe that we are now in an ‘information age’ and are part of a global ‘knowledge economy’. In such an age, access to ICTs to share knowledge, information and ideas seems paramount for social and economic development. Can ICTs play a key role in development and poverty reduction? Can ICTs promote the delivery of basic services, and enhance local development opportunities? Can they also make it easier to make the voices of the poor heard in the decisions that shape their lives?

This paper describes the Darjeeling Himalayan Internet Railway (DHIR) project’s development over 12 months, from March 2003. It describes some of their activities, the community reaction, the successes and the failures. It concludes with a discussion of the closure of the centres, which this paper proposes as organisational failures. The closure of the centres, once they had become established and valued by local communities is a sad reflection of the lack of organisational sustainability and the inability of those in positions of power to recognise community participation and to listen to their voices and opinions.

The initiative
DHIR was a pilot project initiated by UNESCO under its ICTs for Poverty Reduction Project in partnership with the Northern Frontier Railway. There was a tripartite agreement for implementation of the project between UNESCO, the Railways (Government) and COSMOS (a local non-government organisation). The local stakeholders/project management team (PMT) representing the local community was set up to oversee, manage and administer the project with the implementing NGO.

DHIR centres were set up in four of the world heritage stations along the heritage railway line. The four centres along the heritage railway line were Sukna, Kurseong, Ghoom and Darjeeling. The distance between the first and the last centre is about 70 Km. Sukna and Kurseong centres were established year ago. Darjeeling centre was set up in August 2003. Ghoom Centre was set up in end of November 2003. Sukna is the only centre that is situated in the foothill and rest of the centres are situated in the hills. The objective was to offer secure, central and easy computer and Internet access to people living below the poverty line in communities living close to the railway stations. The access to ICTs was also intended to bridge the information gap for these people.

DHIR centres, despite their limited resources, were able to provide many relevant local services. Each centre had two computers with dial up connection, telephone and printer/photocopy machine. The four centres in a period of 10 months were able to work with over 600 people.

DHIR is one project within a larger UNESCO project, ICTs for Poverty Reduction. Within this wider project, individual projects cover a range of poor individuals and communities with a variety of technology mixes. Each one is developing different social and technological access models that address both the root causes of poverty and key barriers to ICT usage by the poor. Working with parallel UNESCO initiatives, nine project sites have been established (in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan) in partnership with NGOs, governments, universities, private companies, media and technology groups as well as poor women, youth and their families.

Interested? Read the complete article here.