Ranking and Prioritizing Villages in Tehran Province to Transform Rural Post Offices to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Offices with Rural Development Objective by Using Numerical Taxonomy Method

One issue that is raised as a constraint in rural development planning is related to budget allocation. Applying numerical taxonomy analysis, it is attempted to consider the contribution of ICT to growth and development in rural areas, and also review the experience of some countries in this field and thereby the villages in Tehran province have been ranked so that post offices can be transformed to ICT offices according to their prioritization. We selected the villages from 3371 hamlets based on 9 indicators: total population of village, the number of literates in the village, the number of students in the village, the ratio of literate to total population of village,, the ratio of students to total population of village, the ratio of employed to total population of village, the ratio of persons of ten years of age and more to total population of village, the ratio of ordinary household residence to total households, and the number of residential units. The present study shows among the villages in Tehran province 20 villages have higher priority for transforming their post offices to ICT offices.