Cell Phones and Access to Financial Services – India

Cellphones a tool in India’s fight against corruption, By Rick Westhead, May 24, 2010, Toronto Star: “In many remote corners of the developing world, cellphones have become a valuable tool to battle poverty. Farmers use them to get timely weather forecasts and tips about fertilizers. And when their fields are harvested, they rely on contacts in nearby markets to send SMS messages that help them decide where to take their produce for the best prices, cutting out greedy middlemen. Now, government officials in the central Indian state of Bihar hope the cellphone can tackle a new challenge: battling government corruption. In early 2009, officials with Bihar’s ministry of health told an international development agency of their concern that frontline health-care workers might bolt their jobs. Bihar has 72,000 accredited social health activists – volunteers who are paid commissions for ensuring children are born in hospitals and properly vaccinated. But the activists typically aren’t paid for months and, even then, only get a portion of their earnings because local managers demand kickbacks of as much as 40 per cent in exchange for their paycheques…”