Exponential growth in ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and establishment of RKCs (Rural
Knowledge Centers) have been fast spreading across the globe. In the continuous process, there are tens of
thousands of RKCs are being established by various agencies, to provide shared public access to ICTs for meeting
educational, social, personal, economic and entertainment needs of the rural community. As most of these
initiatives are relatively new, there are mixed opinions on the social and economic impacts of RKCs. There is also
lack of good understanding on the conceptual and theoretical framework for planning and designing of RKCs. The
authors conducted a study to fill this information gap by assessing selected ICT4D (ICT for development) project
sites in rural India. Through the systemic analysis of the data and continuous interpretation of the observations, the
study proposes a framework for planning and designing of RKCs. In this paper, the authors present the study
results, and discuss the evolution process of RKCs and factors that influences planning and designing of RKCs
