Internet is still inaccessible to some remote poverty-striken area in China. [File photo]

Nevertheless, the important role of the Internet in developing rural areas has never been ignored.

"Today, China has about 30,000 websites concerning agricultural issues. We plan to cut that number while improving the quality of the ones that remain," Du said.

The official website of the Ministry of Agriculture currently attracts some six million clicks every day, he said.

"Limited or no access to the Internet has hindered rural residents from enjoying the public services provided by the government as conveniently as their urban counterparts," said Jin Feng, head of the Information Center of east China's Jiangxi Province.

A large proportion of the rural population also misses out using the Internet as an important channel for voicing opinions, although it is becoming increasingly so for urban residents.

"About 80 percent of the complaints posted on the 'message board' of the website of the provincial government are from urban citizens," Jin said.

An important requirement for e-governance was to "give a greater voice to the poor, particularly rural communities," said Haddawy.

Thanks to the government's subsidies, many villages in Jiangxi managed to set up a service center equipped with computers and an instructor to teach farmers the basics of the Internet, Jin said.

Dr. Sharon Dawes from the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, said that in poor rural areas, higher levels of literacy and basic education were the foundation of progress in e-governance.

"Education provides opportunities to prepare people to be good consumers of information. I believe that information can help lift people out of poverty," she said.

The central committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have stressed the significance of "informatization" in rural areas in the "No. 1 document" of the central committee, the first document issued every year, for five years in a row.