Addressing sustainability in rural connectivity: A case study of Gram Marg community-led networks
India's digital landscape has rapidly evolved with the introduction of the government's “Digital India” initiative.  This has led to an unprecedented growth in communication technologies. Internet connectivity, with the aim of achieving “accessibility for all”, has penetrated at a rapid pace. This has impacted and revolutionised lives in a manner that perhaps no other technology has achieved so far.
In spite of this growth, approximately 49.5% of the population of India is still unconnected.  Wide rural-urban connectivity gaps exist that evidence a stark digital divide. While urban India is almost completely covered with voice and data service, rural India still suffers from inadequate connectivity. In a country with a population of 1.34 billion, there are only 325 million broadband subscribers.  Internet penetration in rural areas stands at 21% compared to 65% in urban areas. 
The Indian government, through the BharatNet initiative, aims at digitally connecting 250,000 Gram Panchayats  (local self-government offices at the village level) by 2019,  extending this to villages and households in villages through local internet service providers (ISPs), run by both government and private telecom operators. Such large-scale deployments involve significant cost to the government and, as a result, there is a need to enable this connectivity to be permanent and sustainable.
The sustainability of rural internet connectivity is based on the basic premise of supply and demand. The demand is by and large dynamic in nature due to a lack of digital awareness and an unstable customer base (primarily farmers) with no fixed monthly income. On the supply side, a lack of digital infrastructure and services, the ineffective use of available connectivity, and low profitability of investment play major roles. Due to this unevenness of demand and supply, rural areas are underserved and unreached.
In order to address this, partnership models have been identified as a suitable method for enabling sustainable connectivity.  There have been several types of such partnership models, such as the BOT (build operate transfer) model, BTO (build transfer operate) model, and joint venture model.  Globally, the private and public sectors are the two key players that collaborate on initiatives to bring voice and data connectivity in rural areas and in most cases they work in partnership with each other. However, planning and maintenance delays, inadequate monitoring, funding gaps and improper management are some of the shortcomings. Because of this, these models are unable to sustain themselves in the field for very long. Apart from this, a key feature that these models lacked was involvement of local people for whom the network has been facilitated. In India, these models largely follow a top-down approach, concentrating on a customer base and a suitable return on investment. The local and regional needs are sidelined and unattended to in such partnership models, making them unviable in rural areas. As a result, in order to make connectivity sustainable in rural India, there is a need to develop a suitable partnership model with village involvement as the crux.
This report discusses the Public-Private-Panchayat Partnership (4-P) model developed and validated on the ground for its sustainability in villages where connectivity has been enabled through our project. We also discuss how the 4-P model is implemented in Gram Marg villages and generates revenue, thereby making it a sustainable model. Currently this model is working successfully in the villages in the Palghar district of Maharashtra, where internet connectivity has been enabled by Gram Marg. The first part of the report gives a short overview of Gram Marg community-led networks. In the second part of the report, the development and validation of the sustainable 4-P model will be discussed. The final section highlights relevant policy measures needed for the adoption of a sustainable model in rural con