Gram Vikas receives Oracle grant to bridge gaps in market, health services

Bhubaneswar: Gram Vikas has announced that it has received a grant from Oracle, a global leader in cloud applications and platform services.

The grant of Rs.4.8 million is for the “Oracle Smart Community Interface in tribal areas of Odisha and continued support for Oracle Smart Classroom in Tribal Residential schools.”

Gram Vikas is a non-governmental organization working with underprivileged and deprived communities in inaccessible rural and tribal pockets of Odisha and Jharkhand.

The objective of the grant is to use information-communication technology to enable small producers to access relevant market information and enable remotely located communities to access health services using online service provision information.

7500 persons from remote villages in Kalahandi and Ganjam will directly benefit from the grant in 2018-19, said a statement.

The grant will also continue to help strengthen Oracle Smart Classrooms in four residential schools of Gram Vikas located in tribal districts of Ganjam, Gajapati, and Kalahandi district in Odisha, it added.

1300 children from tribal families will benefit from this.

The grant will help Gram Vikas configure and set up architecture for Market Information Systems in remote villages without regular internet/mobile access.

It will also help farmers receive real-time information on market price and related info, and a Health Information System that will enable better access for remote rural communities to Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and other public health-nutrition programmes.

“Farmers in remote locations of Kalahandi and Ganjam district often find it difficult to obtain remunerative prices for their produce, especially seasonal vegetables. Inability to get proper information on the prices in nearby markets forces them to sell the produce in their villages at very low prices. The support from Oracle will help us create an innovative and path-breaking information system that will help the farmers get much higher prices,” said Liby T Johnson, Executive Director, Gram Vikas.

“We are pleased to support Gram Vikas in a shared mission to improve the world around us,” said Rajendra Tripathi, Senior Manager, Oracle Corporate Citizenship – India.