Information Support System in Rural Manipur

The work is the report of the UGC Major Research Project on Integrated Rural Development: A Model Integrated Information System for the Development of Rural Areas of Manipur. The author is the Principal Investigator of the Project. Right information to the right people at the right time will help socio-economic development among rural masses. The scenario of rural libraries in Manipur is not very satisfactory. The Manipur Public Libraries Act, 1988 has no provision for library users and the limited amount of grants-in-aid received by the rural libraries is never sufficient enough for survival. In the rural areas it is difficult to find Information centers which can be treated as rural information research centers or rural information dissemination centers in the State of Manipur. The existing information centers are extremely inadequate in order to meet the information needs of the rural people in rural areas. In order to understand the information needs of the rural Manipur the present study is conducted. Multi-stage sampling is adopted by classifying the entire rural areas of Manipur State. Both valley and hill comprise a sample of 1650 individuals from different user community of rural areas. The required data are collected by using pre-tested semi structure questionnaire and presented in tabular form and analysis is done with Chi-Square Test and appropriate suggestions are placed.