124 Copyright © 2010, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 9 E-Governance and ICT Enabled Rural Development in Developing Countries: Critical Lessons from RASI Project in India G. Kannabiran National Insitute of Technology, India M. J. Xavier SRM University, India T. Banumathi Kongu Arts and Science College, India abStract Proactive economic policies combined with the ICT revolution of the past decade have brought about many changes in managing businesses and organizations in developing countries like India. The prow- ess achieved through this revolution has also led to exploitation of ICT for better governance and rural development. As a result, several ICT projects have been initiated to foster improved governance and facilitate rural development by appropriately linking public and private institutions. RASI (Rural Access to Services through Internet) is one such government-private initiative to promote e-governance and ICT enabled rural development. Our longitudinal research is to analyze the factors related to access to and usage of the services offered through this project in Erode district of the state of Tamilnadu in India. Data for this empirical research was collected through survey and interviews during two time periods (2004 and 2006). Our fndings show that the project has largely deviated from its objectives due to lack of government support, non-scalable technology and ownership issues. Based on our fndings, we provide a set of recommendations to policy makers and implementing agencies.