Under the leadership of Dr. Surinder Batra, Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad’s CRICKET program is focused on boosting business in rural India.
“CRICKET is a new initiative which we have taken up at IMT with the inspiration and vision of our esteemed Director, Dr. Bibek Banerjee,” said Dr. Batra. “However, this CRICKET is not the same as World Cup Cricket or the IPL, though it promises to be as exciting and as fulfilling.
“CRICKET stands for a centre which promotes rural innovation; aims at capacity building; facilitates social entrepreneurship and adopts knowledge management and technology to promote its objectives. It is an acronym for Centre for Rural Innovation, Capacity Building, Knowledge Management, (Social) Entrepreneurship and Technology.”
The research project Dr. Batra has focused on “has conceptualized ‘Knowledge Village’ as a unit of analysis for benchmarking knowledge-based development,” he said.
“For a country like India with over 800 million rural population, it is inconceivable not to have the focus of knowledge-based development on rural India.”
Basically, CRICKET would provide a platform at the grass-roots level for action research.
Dr. Batra said: “CRICKET would be focused at vital, but often neglected, segments of the Indian society, such as rural innovators, micro and small enterprises. It will provide them professional guidance in managing the commercial aspects of their innovations through support in market research (with the help of PGDM students), developing business plans, refining business processes and thereby nurturing sustainable business.
“The lessons learnt through such engagements with the target group would be then channelized into action-research-based case studies and other research publications. Eventually, this endeavour can be expected to result in creating intellectual property for IMT and for the concerned faculty members engaged in such action research.”
Dr. Batra cited the gap between urban and rural areas in India, saying the current view of villagers is to head to bigger cities for better chances at jobs, education and a higher standard of living.
Unfortunately the higher standard of living dream doesn’t always hold true “because the quality of life in most urban areas for lower income groups is abysmal.”
“But as the grass is greener on the other side, the village communities tend to overlook the need for making their local environment more dynamic,” he said.
“The solution is to provide urban amenities in rural areas and thereby provide all forms of connectivity to the rural population,” said Dr. Batra, pointing to a project called PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) proposed by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, former president of India.
He was quick to point out knowledge management (KM) isn’t an all-encompassing solution to unemployment and underemployment in India, but it does have a definite role to play.
“KM in particular can help in establishing a link between national development strategy and various processes of knowledge acquisition, sharing and utilization,” he said.
“Effective application of Information and Communications Technology in education, both urban and rural, is another important pillar of knowledge management which can help in this pursuit,” said Dr. Batra. “Rural empowerment projects such as ‘Every Village a Knowledge Centre’ have helped in harnessing knowledge at the grassroots level and facilitated addressing societal problems.”
The research work he is spearheading at IMT-Ghaziabad should take this rural empowerment to even higher levels.
“CRICKET is a new initiative which we have taken up at IMT with the inspiration and vision of our esteemed Director, Dr. Bibek Banerjee,” said Dr. Batra. “However, this CRICKET is not the same as World Cup Cricket or the IPL, though it promises to be as exciting and as fulfilling.
“CRICKET stands for a centre which promotes rural innovation; aims at capacity building; facilitates social entrepreneurship and adopts knowledge management and technology to promote its objectives. It is an acronym for Centre for Rural Innovation, Capacity Building, Knowledge Management, (Social) Entrepreneurship and Technology.”
The research project Dr. Batra has focused on “has conceptualized ‘Knowledge Village’ as a unit of analysis for benchmarking knowledge-based development,” he said.
“For a country like India with over 800 million rural population, it is inconceivable not to have the focus of knowledge-based development on rural India.”
Basically, CRICKET would provide a platform at the grass-roots level for action research.
Dr. Batra said: “CRICKET would be focused at vital, but often neglected, segments of the Indian society, such as rural innovators, micro and small enterprises. It will provide them professional guidance in managing the commercial aspects of their innovations through support in market research (with the help of PGDM students), developing business plans, refining business processes and thereby nurturing sustainable business.
“The lessons learnt through such engagements with the target group would be then channelized into action-research-based case studies and other research publications. Eventually, this endeavour can be expected to result in creating intellectual property for IMT and for the concerned faculty members engaged in such action research.”
Dr. Batra cited the gap between urban and rural areas in India, saying the current view of villagers is to head to bigger cities for better chances at jobs, education and a higher standard of living.
Unfortunately the higher standard of living dream doesn’t always hold true “because the quality of life in most urban areas for lower income groups is abysmal.”
“But as the grass is greener on the other side, the village communities tend to overlook the need for making their local environment more dynamic,” he said.
“The solution is to provide urban amenities in rural areas and thereby provide all forms of connectivity to the rural population,” said Dr. Batra, pointing to a project called PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) proposed by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, former president of India.
He was quick to point out knowledge management (KM) isn’t an all-encompassing solution to unemployment and underemployment in India, but it does have a definite role to play.
“KM in particular can help in establishing a link between national development strategy and various processes of knowledge acquisition, sharing and utilization,” he said.
“Effective application of Information and Communications Technology in education, both urban and rural, is another important pillar of knowledge management which can help in this pursuit,” said Dr. Batra. “Rural empowerment projects such as ‘Every Village a Knowledge Centre’ have helped in harnessing knowledge at the grassroots level and facilitated addressing societal problems.”
The research work he is spearheading at IMT-Ghaziabad should take this rural empowerment to even higher levels.
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