For the nearly 700 million people in India’s 600,000 villages, connectivity and access to affordable goods and services is the need of the hour. India’s rural populace is isolated and there is an urgent need to bridge the rural-urban chasm we have inherited over generations. Governments, Corporates and Individuals have rightly determined the tremendous potential lodged in this segment. Providing this base with affordable goods and services will stimulate commerce and development. This, in turn, will fundamentally change the paradigm we know as our country’s ‘rural poor’.
Living in most parts of rural India is equivalent to living in isolation. Accessing essential services proves to be an ordeal and is an expensive proposition with people having to travel great distances to reach a government office or business facility. The average rural citizen does not have access to organized credit facilities, savings options, basic education and employment alternatives. The lack of real time information on prices, weather and other critical news, results in farmers incurring huge losses. In turn, there is a substantial population of rural India migrating to urban areas in search of better prospects.
Comat’s Rural Business Center (RBC) is designed to eradicate these deficiencies and provide India’s rural population access to a range of essential services, through innovative information and communication technologies.
RBCs are ICT enabled delivery channels that are manned by our employees. The power of the RBC is to be able to deliver diverse sets of services using a common infrastructure that uses technology and a local human interface. These centers act as the last mile reach, connect information service providers to customers, generate local IT based employment opportunities and bridge the digital divide.
Comat owns and operates its RBCs and is testimony to the success of the ‘company owned - company operated’ model. Through this model, we ensure effective investment, infrastructure, credibility and sustainability. This unique business design enables us to expand service delivery by enabling partnerships with players like LIC and SBI who would not have considered tie-ups with multiple franchisees.
Comat’s innovation also lies in identifying high revenue activities for maximum utilization of infrastructure in the RBC during off hours to scale revenues.
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