Access to and Socio-economic Impact Assessment of Computer/Internet in Rural Haryana, India

Abstract

The study was conducted on a sample of 200 respondents comprising of 100 males and 100 females drawn from four  villages of Hisar district. The data were collected on structured interview schedule regarding personal life of rural  respondents it was found that computer/internet had moderate impact in terms of entertainment, enhancement of skill and  current news in case of male respondents, while for female respondents, moderate impact was observed in areas of quality  of education, enhancement of skill, and selection of reading material. Data of social impact of rural clientele clearly  indicated that majority of male respondents had moderate impact in terms of social status, social relationship and social  awareness whereas, moderate impact was observed in life of female respondents in areas of social status, social  awareness and social networking. Computer/internet had moderate impact in education in terms of awareness about  admission, career information, job opportunities on the life of male and female respondents, while it had moderate impact  in area of internet banking and financial management as far as economic aspect is concerned. Computer / internet had  moderate impact on life of male respondents in terms of preventing crop disease, live stock keeping and preventing animal  disease whereas, it had low impact in the areas of preventing animal diseases, preventing crop diseases and livestock  keeping. Association of socio-economic variables of male and female respondents indicate significant association of age,  education and occupation with access to computer/internet whereas, significant association of age and education was  found with control of computer/internet. Significant association of complete access with impact of computer/internet was  found where as complete control on use and selling and purchase of computer/internet was significantly associated with  impact of computer/internet on rural clientele. Main constraints in use of computer/internet were economic dependency,  lack of decision making ability, lack of control on use of computer/internet and lack of power supply.