Drishti-Soft Implements Rural IVRS To Enable Multi-Lingual Infoline For Farmers Across India

Even with a literacy rate of as high as 65 percent in the rural areas and increased subscription of mobile services, a mass-reach information system is yet to become a movement. Such a system would require a simplified, cost-effective and relevant solution that can lead to a better tomorrow.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data shows that rural subscribers form a formidable block of 21.31 percent or over one-fifth of the total mobile user base in India. This penetration of mobile phones can be utilised to create a phone-based information service for educating and assisting the farmers in making important crop-related decisions and planning a rich harvest. The idea of a phone-based information dissemination system has been around for quite some time. However, the high costs of information propagation have been a setback always. Drishti’s Ameyo Communications Suite is an advanced solution aiming to fill this gap in the market.

An IT service targeting primarily the Indian farmer base is the Rural IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System). It provides new and relevant information services to rural communities and supports regional languages to reach the end farmer and speaks out in a language he understands. G S Management, a Bangalore-based business services company runs a mobile-based farmers’ infoline for a reputed company. Drishti’s Ameyo Communications Suite is the technology powering this info centre.

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The info-line facilitated by Drishti employs a complex IVRS supporting seven regional languages including Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannad, Telugu and Tamil (another seven languages would be added soon). This multi-lingual IVRS provides a reliable and high-performance software solution for rural India. The farmers can create their personalised service comprising localised weather updates, crop advisory, agricultural rural news and market prices in 11 states, from a wide menu of 250 crops and 1,200 local and national markets, in the local language of their choice. It provides filtered information to meet the needs of a rural user in a language he understands through the phone.

Girisha R, Area Sales Manager, Drishti-Soft, says, “The process required a complex IVR that incorporated multi-lingual support and enabled skill-based routing. The IVRS included a unique feature called Personalised IVR. In this, the system automatically recognises a caller based on interaction history and treats the customer with appropriate language. Many other customisations were made to our standard product to map the process requirement of this Rural IVR. A mammoth effort in such innovative processes serving rural India is towards the challenge of achieving extremely low costs per transaction, which was met successfully with Ameyo IPCC.”

H S Gopal, MD, G S Management, said, “Being a part of the rural info-line domain was a pleasure. Drishti has been the right technology partner to help us deliver the standards expected. The efficiency of the IVRS implemented and its flexibility to accommodate on-going process changes has been a key attribute for us to appreciate Ameyo more.”