In our country, serving the needs of the urban population is considered the best practice of information technology. Only until recently, the rural population had mostly been deprived from availing this gift. Undoubtedly, one of the promising and extremely successful projects focussed on aiding the daily activities of the rural people is the 'Pallitathya' programme. The Development through Access to Network Resources (D.Net), the project implementing body, recently updated it by launching 'Jeeon' - a range of Information and Knowledge Base (IKB) CDs.

The 'Pallitathya' programme itself began at Shelbunia in Mongla, Bagerhat. Under the programme, information of individual villages and districts along with their resources were collected. These were later compiled to create a database, which was maintained by D.Net at its Dhaka headquarters .

The organisation operated their four 'Pallitathya Kendras'(www.pallitathya.org) in Nilphamari, Netrokona, Bagerhat and Noakhali with this huge online database.

"The Jeeon CDs came into reality to compensate the lack of internet connectivity in most villages and districts," explained Dr Ananya Raihan, executive director of D.Net.
The CDs were launched a few weeks back, during the 5th anniversary celebrations of the organisation at Brac Centre Inn in Dhaka.

Subtitled 'Information for Life', the Jeeon CDs have all been developed in Bangla. Each CD responds to daily queries made by villagers concerning what, where, who and how in the areas of agriculture, healthcare, non-farm economic activities, appropriate technology, healthcare, education, human rights, awareness and disaster management.

"Most of the topics included in each of these CDs were too detailed and could not be accommodated entirely into our online database. So we published them in this format," said Raihan.

Eight thousand entities of data from the database have been included in the CDs.
The 'Jeeon Education' CD contains description of various academic institutions, admission information, information about national and international scholarships regarding education, and information about libraries, coaching centres etc.

'Jeeon Agriculture' contains information on various agricultural products like species, cultivation techniques, and information on pests and pesticides, fertiliser management, soil management etc.

'Jeeon Addresses' include contact details and other necessary details about agriculture, forestry, fisheries, poultry and wildlife, food preservation, construction materials, transport, education, security and other service providing organisations.
'Jeeon Appropriate Technology' has data on advanced furnace, methods of economic house construction, sanitation technology, solar power usage, and decontaminating arsenic from water etc.

'Jeeon Non-farm Economic Activities' include data on handicrafts, press business, repairing business, training etc.

'Jeeon Disaster Management' encompasses steps to be taken during disasters like flood, famine, tornado, earthquake, river erosion etc. It also includes measures to be taken during the pre-disaster and post-disaster period and other necessary topics.

'Jeeon Awareness' focuses on general information on popular topics like women and child trafficking, arsenic, drug addiction, leprosy, food and nourishment, citizen rights, polythene usage, rights of the mentally and physically challenged etc.

'Jeeon Law and Human Rights' cover laws centred around land, heritage, women's rights, child rights and various local and international convention.

'Jeeon Health' focuses on details about human anatomy, diseases, symptoms for diseases, first aid treatments etc.

"The overall language of the CDs has been designed and published in a such a way that it will be comprehensive for people from any and every rural part of the country," mentioned Raihan.

The overall cost of compilation, design, editing, publication and other details of the CDs is around Taka 1 crore.

The Research Initiative of Bangladesh, International Development Research Centre and Manusher Jonno provided the funds.

"We have over 25,000 html pages which were converted and published through the CDs," said Raihan.

Despite the impressive content, the CDs are not for individual or commercial sale.
"We intend to sell the licence of the IKB to Non-government and other organisations who are operating at the grassroots level in the rural areas," said an official of the organisation.

He pointed out that the D.Net wants to publish updates every three months.
"The annual cost of Taka 65 lakh for the updating can be met with the proceeds from the sales of licences," he said.

Besides providing useful information, the D.Net also plans to provide a model using which most of these non-profit organisations can earn some money.
Through D.Net's prescribed model, these organisations can charge information seekers for services like photography, composing, soil testing etc.

"Through this, a certain revenue would be generated which can ensure operations of the organisations," he said.

Besides providing information through their mobile centres and personnel in the rural areas, the D.Net also plans to introduce three-wheeled information centres, which will be able to target rural people in masses during the weekly 'haats' or other occasions in the villages.

The 'Pallitathya' programme started in 2003 and it has been quite successful over the last three years.

The D.Net, itself, is a not-for-profit research and advocacy organisation that has dedicated its efforts by using information and communication technology (ICT) toward poverty alleviation and economic development of Bangladesh.