“Whenever we face health problems, we can get the solution with the help of mobile phone,” said Kul Bahadur Gaha of Gotari, Palpa .
This is an example of how advancement in technology has helped rural people get health services. Needless to say, technology has bridged the gap between rural and urban lives.
Rural telecom service provider Smart Telecom, in partnership with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Teaching Hospital, is offering “Smart Health Line” service which has benefited people from more than 250 villages of the country. “Smart Health Line” offers medical counseling services over the telephone from trained and experienced health professionals.
Due to the gradual decline in prices of ICT products and telecom equipment and increased competition in market, ICT-based services have become cheaper. Gone are the days when telecom companies charged mobile phone customers for incoming calls and the tariff for international calls was more than Rs 100 a minute. Now, one can call to countries like the USA, UK and Canada at less than Rs 2 a minute and making calls within the country costs less than a rupee.
That’s not all. Charges for data services too have decreased considerably, and their demand is growing rapidly. Through the 3G service, customers can make face-to-face video calls, watch television and make banking transactions on their mobile phones. “Sales of laptops and smartphones have zoomed in recent years thanks to falling prices and cheaper internet services,” said Shishir Upadhyay, president of the ICT Association of Nepal.
Certainly, technology innovations are reshaping the society. “Looking at the trends over the last 10 years, every sector has seen changes, but it’s just the ICT sector that has developed a lot,” said Ganesh Shah, former minister for environment, science and technology. Telecom penetration rate in Nepal has increased to 72 percent and data penetration rate has crossed 20 percent.
Bhesh Raj Poudel, first vice president of the ICT Association, said ICT it not only developing alone, but also helping other sectors develop. He said use of ICT has brought huge changes in other sectors such as education, health and banking. “All banks and financial institutions now have any branch banking service (ABBS), which became possible because of internet and computers,” said Paudel, adding banks also integrating their services with mobile phones.
Likewise, communication, be it intra- or inter-organisation, is done through e-mails. Shopping too has become easier as one can get even green vegetables online.
Technology has even changed the way people socialise. “Earlier, people use to have friends only from their society, office, college or schools, but now if you see on Facebook, people have more than 500 friends,” Paudel said.
It is estimated that around two million Nepalis have Facebook account. The growth in the trend of “virtual interaction” on social networking sites has been attributed to the increased subscription to mobile phone and mobile data services.
Currently, Nepal Telecom and Ncell are providing the 3G data service along with the mobile voice service. Three more operators—United Telecom Limited, Smart Telecom and STM Telecom Sanchar—are preparing start mobile data service.
With increasing demand for ICT products, there is good presence of global ICT brands in the Nepali market. New mobile phones, laptops, computers and other goodies are being introduced almost every day. The number of brand conscious is rising by the day. And, the ICT Association has been organising an expo every year to creating brand awareness for last three years.
Experts said the increased remittance inflow has pushed up Nepalis’ purchasing power. The demand for ICT product and the market size is increasing steadily every year. However, the government has no actual record of the size of investment of the private sector in the ICT sector. Neither has it made efforts to ascertain the actual amount of resources spent for the sector’s development.
ICT traders said in the Indian ICT industry is worth around $40 billion. “In Nepal, the government does not have much information about this sector,” said CN Upadhya, coordinator of the ICT Info Trade and treasurer of the ICT Association. He said if the government concentrates on the sector, it can be the main pillar for the economic development.
Besides ICT products and services, the country has huge potential in ICT outsourcing. Many domestic companies are already active in business processing outsourcing (BPO). But there are no data of how many software developers and firms are working for local BPOs. Upadhya said domestic software developers are capable of bagging big contracts from foreign companies, but advertisement has to be done properly. “Nepali embassies abroad have to advertise Nepal’s potential in software development in the international markets,” he said.
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