Day is not too far when one can manage funds in different banks, pay bills for phone, electricity and other utilities, pay income and weallth tax, plan journeys to different places and book tickets, pay installments of home loans, transfer money to the accounts of children studying far away with the help of a mouse click sitting in a house of a far flung rural area. This all has already become reality for people residing in cities and towns but still a dream for people living in rural India. It would be nice to depict the technological scenario with the illustration of my own case. Earlier I've to run from piller to post to accomplish the necessary tasks of my day-to-day life but within a short span of 4-5 years life has become so easy and comfortable that I can dispose off most of the tasks with the help of my laptop/desktop connected with the internet using broadband connection. Besides, I can earn some easy money using online cash earning opportunities.

Travel:

The big headache to think of a travel was to plan a journey. In India, if you are staying in a remote place from your close relatives or if you are in a Govt. or private job and posted far away from your native place, you have to undertake rail or air travel. It was most difficult task to gather information about places, mode of transport and financial budget to meet these requirements. Now all the informatiion is available on the net and one can access it with a simple click of mouse. Within few minutes, one can book e-ticket for train or air travel. Earlier one has to make payment using credit cards but now its possible to book e-tickets for train travel using ATM cards, net banking or credit cards and e-tciket for air travel using netbanking and credit cards. It saves your time as well as money. In case of air travel, you can save good amount of money as web fare is always less than the regular fare. This is atleast true for Air India bookings. Not only this, the prices or fares have become so competitive that one can travel with lowest fares offered by different airlines. However, fares are fixed in case of train travel as train travel is monopolized by Indian railways. One can even book e-tickets for deluxe and AC buses through internet.

Payment of housing /Vehicle /personal loans:

I've to visit the office of the loan providing firm to hand over post dated cheques annually/biannually or to collect the statements of loan payment to avail the income tax benefits. I have to remember the month from which next installment will be due after all these post dated cheques are exhausted.Several times I have to inquire about the changes in EMI and other details. However, now I am free of this burden. I've registered with the firm's site and I have facility for online payment of installment monthly. All the details of my home loan account are available to me at the screen of my laptop. These facilities has made life easy for me and now I can control everything from my home.

Similarly, I am able to manage my car loan account with a nationalized bank. I've both the facilities available to me. I can either give standing instructions to my bank to withdraw money from my saving bank account and deposit this amount on a prefixed date to my car loan account. Likewise, I can transfer money from my saving bank account to my personal loan account.

Payment of electricity/telephone bills:

I can pay my electricity and telephone bills using online payment facility. This facility, however, is available in metros only and probably cover small towns in few years. One can get duplicate telephone electricity bills from departmental sites. There is need for some perfection in functioning of these sites. There is lack of interest on part of employees of these departments to make their sites fully functional. There is need in change of approach and higher ups have to look into this aspect. problem is more concentrated with nationalized departments. However, some nationalized departments have been granted status of the corporation but it will take some time to adoption of corporate culture.

Managing funds and investment:

Netbanking facility has made it very simple and inexpensive to transfer funds from one of my account to other accounts either in same bank or in different banks, in same city or different cities. Few years back, one has to send money using money order, wire transfer or using other tedious means. However, now it has become so simple to transfer money to your relatives or children's account using netbanking that you can transfer huge amount of money. All this can be controlled from your home using netbanking.

Now you need not to go to bank to open a recurring deposit or fixed deposit account, you can do it sitting at your home if you have netbanking facility.

Most of the banks are offering facilities for opening a demat account. It will help you to invest in promising shares and also enable to go for share trading.

Payment of insurance premium:

There are still some hitches but few firms have made it possible for you to pay your premium using online facilities.

Monitoring your bank accounts:

Most of the banks have their online sites and one can monitor his/her account from home after registering with the site.

This all discussion shows that most of the work can be accomplished sitting at your home. In coming years, whatever deficiencies are existing at present, will be taken care by concerned organizations.

Communication means:

Most of the postal requirements are met fully at home using my laptop, internet connection, landline phone and All-in-One printer. I can send email and fax from my home. Fax is seldom used. I prefer to scan a document, convert it into PDF and transmit using e-mail. Fax is used only when there is no e-mail address available for the receiver.