Plus, it’s all via cell phones. It does not take development practitioners and IT enthusiasts to sell the idea any more — the transformative power of mobile technology is all around us in India, and intuitively understood. In corners of the country that are let down by other kinds of infrastructure — bad roads, excruciatingly slow postal services, spotty landline services — mobile phones have made all the difference to the way people live and work. An extra 10 phones per 100 people in a typical developing country boosts GDP growth by 0.8 percentage points, according to the World Bank. They are like digital Swiss army knives, enfolding a range of functions. For instance, mobile money is a whole new frontier, a way of introducing people to more formal financial services. For many Indians, for whom Internet infrastructure is not available,

mobile phones have been (and will be) the primary way of wiring themselves to the world.

The Bundelkhand experiment is simply a small but vivid illustration of the scope of m-governance. Of course, it’s not perfect — from the obvious physical limitations, to tariff structures and some limits on applications and services that stem from inadequate infrastructure (though still a fraction of what wired networks need). But like countries around the world are finding out, that intimate little device nestling in your palm is the new frontier in public service delivery.