Nearly 25,000 villages will be connected to the network in the first phase of the programme, but this will be stepped up to around 100,000 to complete a national rollout by 2007, Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam told a meeting in New Delhi.

"Today, our problem is not shortage of money, people or people who have knowledge, but how to integrate all of them," he said. "You have to use technology and knowledge to value add to our natural resources."

India's farm sector employs nearly 70 percent of its workforce, with agriculture contributing almost a quarter of gross domestic product.

Economists say boosting farm sector growth is vital to the country's ambition of maintaining seven to eight percent growth over long-term, to join the league of developed nations.

"If only two-three large states like Uttar Pradesh can be developed, then India can be on way to becoming a developed nation. For that, we have to give essential data through knowledge centres to farmers, fishermen and traders in the villages," Kalam said.

The project, called Mission 2007, is sponsored by 80 organisations including US-based Microsoft and India's largest software services firm, Tata Consultancy Services.

The computer kiosks will be housed in community centres, schools and government offices linked to the Internet.

India's economic growth slowed to 6.9 percent in the financial year ended March 2005 from 8.5 percent the previous year mainly due to lower farm output.

Ravi Venkatesan, chairman of US-based Microsoft Corporation's Indian office, said that one of the biggest obstacles confronting Indian farmers was that they were losing nearly 25 percent of their incomes to middlemen.

He added that the computer network would not only help the farmers bypass the middlemen, but also enable them to tap the best sources for buying seeds, fertilisers or get advice on farming from scientists.

India's largest cigarette maker, ITC, pioneered the idea of computers kiosks in several Indian villages to buy agricultural produce directly from farmers, enabling both sides to skirt middlemen.

Officials say the expanded network could also greatly improve the quality of rural life by providing a platform for a host of other services including long-distance education and healthcare.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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