Information plays a crucial role in the overall development of the person which gets reflected into overall well-being of the country. Access to information expands knowledge, increases learning abilities, gives innovative ideas, and thus strengthens the person to meet challenges. In the rapidly changing environment, when there is lot of exposure to new technologies and policy changes at varied levels, timely information is essential to help the person to take real time decision. Several methods have been adopted since ages for information delivery. Information technology has passed through pre-mechanical, mechanical, electro-mechanical ages and is presently in the electronic age. During these ages, several technologies have been introduced which includes printing press, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, digital computers, mobile phones and the emerging artificial intelligence (big data, internet of things). Though radio and television have been an important source of mass communication, but the revolution in information is observed when the information started travelling through digital modes (internet). The previous sources of information were one-way communication mode with rigidity in time and place, while the modern sources of information are not only the two-way communication modes but also provide an interactive platform to the users through emails, messaging, chats, videoconferencing, virtual communities, etc. This has smoothened the flow of information, increased transparency, decreased transaction and transportation cost and eased the life. The development of various web-based services increase knowledge, provides new opportunities, expands business at national and international levels, increases productivity and accelerates growth. India has also made many strides in information technology. Particularly the development in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) associated with decrease in price of internet-enabled mobile phones (smart phones) and availability of internet services at competitive prices is providing all time connectivity to users. This has increased flexibility in accessing information at any time and at any place and even when moving. Efforts are being made to strengthen the networks via satellites and broadband connections. The recently launched Digital India Program aims at connecting 250,000 villages by 2019. The last mile approach of connecting India aims at including the persons from the remotest village in the development London Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences process. In India, nearly seventy percent of the population live in rural areas and more than half of the population depends on livelihoods from agriculture. Therefore, agriculture and rural development is critical for increasing the national output. Indian government and other agencies have launched various rural area focussed web-based applications to fulfill the timely needs of the rural population. Some of the apps are Drishtee, N-Logue, Akshaya, Bhoomi, Rural e-Seva, Gyandoot, etc. There are also state-and region specific apps which provides information access in regional language. E-governance provides various panchayat level services through info-kiosks for rural and illiterate people with characteristics of voice, animation, touch screens, etc. in local language.

The utilization of technologies for information access varies according to the differences in education level, social class, gender, etc. This is reflected in terms of benefits derived from information technology. The present study attempt to determine the role of information technology in rural development taking the case of Karnataka state.

? To examine level of awareness of government schemes ? To analyze the level of awareness of government schemes according to the respondent's age.

The available literature favours ICT's impact on employment, income, education, health, women empowerment and governance, however, few considers its adverse impact on employment in the short run. In the long run, the employment growth recovers with various new opportunities. Majority of the studies are related with developed countries. In developing countries, internet penetration has occurred recently and it is still in the development phase. Since the socio-economic conditions in developing countries are different from developed countries, there is a need to study the impact of IT on rural development with reference to their local level factors. Also, the rural area is recognized in terms of predominance of agricultural livelihoods, low level of education, low skill, poor infrastructure, and social-and gender-based hierarchy, the studies conducted on the impact of IT on urban area cannot be replicated on the rural area. Rural area's own characteristics hinders with the process of overall development.

The present study tries to fill this gap by taking the case of villages of Karnataka.

The present study is mainly based upon the primary sources of data. The sample selection procedure involves multistage purposive random sampling. The selection of respondents is done in four stages, namely selection of Taluks (7 Taluk), selection of Gram Panchayat (14 Gram Panchayat), selection of villages (2 villages per Gram Panchayat) and selection of respondents (25 respondents per village, 20 males and 5 females).

? The selection of district is based on population size. It was considered that development of facilities takes place where the concentration of population is high.

? Taluks are selected on the basis of ICT index which includes radio/transistor/ television, landline telephone, mobile phone and computer / laptop with internet.

? The selection of villages is on the basis of their population size as well as distance of village from highways. From each taluk, one village at the highway and the other village at a distance of 10 km or more from highway was selected.

The total sample size is 520 consisting of 210 males and 310 females. The sample is selected irrespective of caste, income and occupational status. This enabled us to include each and every individual in the study. The respondents are in the age group of 20 to 60 years as population under this age group is considered to be highly productive. Though working age group starts from 15 years, but in the present scenario, majority of the population acquires education upto the age of 20 years and becomes the part of labour force London Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences later on. A separate category on females is prepared for the purpose of determining the change in social status as the change in status of females reflects overall social development in the village.

To test the awareness of Rural Entrepreneurs of the various benefits under the MSME Schemes 49 questions were asked under 8 heads. These 8 heads were further considered to be the variable that decides the course of this research. These questions were asked, and the responses were received based on the five broad parameters as a "Likert scale", each item was in five points scale indicating the degree of agreement with a statement in ascending order: 1 = Strongly Agree; 2 = Agree; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Disagree; 5 = Strongly Disagree.

Since the responses collected were in the ordinal form to make it continuous, the researcher calculated each variables average (mean). And these were further used to analyse the level of awareness of the respondents on government schemes related to the Rural Entrepreneurswhich were classified into three categories: high level, moderate level, and low level for analysis purpose. This method was adopted based on the research carried out by Devi, P. & Thayammal, I. P. R. (2017). While the score value greater than (?¯+ SD) were classified as high-level awareness and the score value less than (?¯-SD) were classified as low-level awareness respectively and the score values between (?¯+ SD) and (?¯-SD) have been classified as moderate level of awareness. Here to find ?¯the arithmetic mean and standard deviation (SD) of the score values of 347 respondents were calculated.