Such an initiative has been undertaken by Development through Access to Network Resources (Dnet), who launched its first project under the name 'Pallitathya' at Shelabunia in Mongla, Bagerhat.

Under this project, Dnet covers 40 villages comprising 2 unions and a pauroshava where the populace of the area will be able to access Dnet's 'Pallitathya Kendra' (information centre), which will provide them with information on agriculture, health, education, handicraft, disaster management, legal governance, awareness and employment opportunities.

Database of individual villages and districts along with their resources are being collected and maintained by Dnet at their headquarter in Dhaka from where they will operate their 'Pallitathya Kendra' which they plan to introduce in three more districts, which are Noakhali, Nilphamari and Netrokona.

Dnet has appointed information workers and 'Mobile Ladies' who have been assigned to serve the village people with information aid. 'Mobile Ladies' are assigned to move into villages and arrange a sitting with the villagers to find out their problems and provide them with solutions through 'Pallitathya Kendra' where the information workers sit to serve the villagers with their required information from computers.

The research for 'Pallitathya Kendra' started back in 2003, which has come into reality in 2005 and the research is still on for further development", said Mahmud Hasan, programme director, Dnet.

He also briefed on how villagers could be benefited out of this information centre as this would provide them suggestions regarding their health problems and also recommend the suited doctors and their location along with information of how to reach them.

Moreover as Dr Ananya Raihan, executive diretor of Dnet exampled, fishermen in some locations of India consult such information centres regularly to spot the area of river where they can anticipate fish throngs, which these information centres locate through satellites.

Dnet has also appointed field specific specialists on information help desk at their Dhaka centre who can deal with problems relating to their individual department such as health, legal governance and the other major departments specified above.

The response on the first day of its launch witnessed 15 people. Dnet will serve the information centres at their own cost for one full year and after that the fund would be raised from the income generated from these centres for which 'Pallitathya Kendra' charges its customers a nominal amount much lower than the local market price.

Recently, Dnet received the Gender and ICT Awards for 2005 for their 'Pallitathya' Help-Line (Call Center for the Poor and Under-privileged) project. Dnet will receive a cash prize of USD 8,000 in the Gender and ICT Awards ceremony that will be held during the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) Forum on October 27-30, in Bangkok, Thailand. The sponsors of the Award are the Association for Progressive Communications Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) and Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP).

In an exclusive conversation with Dr Ananya Raihan, executive director for Dnet said, "We have been working on the content development and research for the purpose of 'Pallitathya' since 2003. There is also a Computer Literacy Programme (CLP), which we have started in 2004 along with 'Teletathya' that we have based on the 'Mobile Lady' concept."

Dnet has also developed a portal, bdresearch.org that carries research papers of Bangladesh on different fields and criterions, which was launched in 2001.

Abolombon.org, another Dnet website talks about legal and human rights whereas gunijan.org carries information about eminent personalities under different fields.

When asked about the financial aspects of their projects he said, "At Mongla, Bagerhat, we have used our own resources and investment to build up our first information centre at a cost of Taka 3,20,000."

He also said that they have a budget of Taka 31,27,610 for another 'Pallitathya Kendra' at Nilphamari. Dnet is investing Taka 10,80,000 for this project while Research Initiatives Bangladesh (Rib) has funded the remaining for the purpose of health and agricultural content development.

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has provided Taka 1,89,83,225 to Dnet for the content development of education, appropriate technology, disaster management, rural employment and non-firm economic activities for which Dnet itself has invested Taka 5,50,000.

The setup cost on technical fields has been around Taka 80,000 comprising computers, filters, ups, mobile phones and landline and internet connections.

Dnet has developed a software for 'Pallitathya' with MySQL at the back end and PHP at front end. They have also developed a Bangla search engine and encryption process with Bangla innovation through open source (Bios) targeting the NGOs working for rural development.

"We further plan to introduce 'flood early warning system' and online training for media professionals at the first quarter of 2006", Raihan informed.

"Our priority has been at the rural areas based on poverty map that should be far from the city with the availability of electricity and have local people qualified enough to be information workers. We have also prioritised on diversification of economic activity and availability of social organisations", Raihan added.

While discussing the progress of their next three information centres in the country, Raihan believes their next programme would be on developing money transfer system for the domestic migrant workers who struggle to reach their earned income to their villages at far which could be solved through this.

Asked about the water problem that the locals had stressed, he said, "We have spoken to the NGO Forum for Drinking Water regarding this matter requesting them to concentrate on water purification but we have not received any response yet".