Village knowledge centre toolkit
This simple infrastructure model gives great flexibility and expansion potential. At most 25 to 30 VKCs (the spokes) are linked to a single central facility (the hub). The hub in turn is linked via satellite linkage to the State level hub at the enabling organisation. At present (2006) there are 8 hub centres serving about 40 villages in Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and other Indian states, linked back to MSSRF. Plans are that there will be further State level hubs to support the local hubs, with MSSRF serving Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. This model gives flexibility to the existing VKC development, but it may also contain a weakness in its requirement for a sizeable permanent staff at each hub. It may also be pertinent that although the ideal number of spokes planned per hub is 25 to 30, the reality to date is that the average number is about five. This means there is still little experience of managing a large, busy hub centre and appreciating how big a job this will become.
