This tiny cashew-exporting village located near the Bay of Bengal in the East Godavari district is all set to go fully digital with all the households enjoying WiFI, Internet connectivity and cable TV while making all transactions cashless.
“All the 1,189 households are provided with Internet at 15 mbps speed, cable TV and telephone connection through fibre grid. Each of them can watch 250 television channels. All their transactions are through e-banking, AP Purse, Rupay cards and SBI Buddy. Even small kirana shops have been given e-pos machines,” said East Godavari Collector H. Arun Kumar.
Women could now pay house and water taxes and power bills online and necessary training had been imparted to all the villagers, the Collector told The Hindu on Tuesday asserting that the village could be one of its kind in the country to be cent per cent digital. The village would formally get the “totally digital” tag in the presence of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on January 29.
“Thanks to the State Government for developing our place into special digital village, perhaps first in India. In Mori gram panchayat, all the households have bank accounts and net facility and we can see the world from our homes,” said the Self-Help Group members in unison. Andhra Pradesh State Fiber Net Limited Executive Director Vajji Krishna said 650 Android phones had been distributed to the beneficiaries. The Revenue, Education, DRDA along with Internet Saathi and other NGOs trained nearly 85 self-help group women, 500 students and some households in net-banking.
“We are quite happy that our village has all the digital facilities ranging from Internet to e-pos. We can now make online payments from home,” Perabathula Kanaka Durga and her aunt P. Satyavati told this reporter.
District Panchayat Officer (DPO) T.V.S.G. Kumar, who is the Nodal Officer for Mori village, said the Gram Panchayat would be replaced with LED bulbs in all streets and houses, which would save 50 per cent power bill to the village. Already 328 LED bulbs had been fixed in the residential areas.
“My daughter is pursuing graduation and my son engineering course. With government providing WiFi, we are planning to purchase a tab for my children,” said Pothuraju Satyanarayana, an agriculturist. “The smart phones, Aadhar enabled bank accounts, Internet, swiping machines and the newly introduced e-tax collections are much useful for us now. The entire village turned digital and the locals are making cashless transactions. Thanks to Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu for pitchforking our village to the national map,” said an SHG member Kadali Bhavani.
A group of trained women was seen explaining the villagers on e-payments and the advantages of new Apps and net-banking post demonetisation by making door-to-door visits.
The Collector said a team from the University of Berkeley in the U.S. visited the village recently and was working on extending more digital facilities to the locals. Google, IBM, CISCO and other corporates were chipping in with support to the digitalisation programme.
“We will soon start digital classrooms in the local schools and extend the facilities to other villages soon,” Mr. Arun Kumar said.
