The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved ‘Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan’ or PMGDISHA to make six crore rural households digitally literate. The outlay for the project is ₹2,351.38 crore. The programme aims to usher in digital literacy in rural India by March 2019. “This is in line with the announcement made by Finance Minister in the Union Budget 2016-17...PMGDISHA is expected to be one of the largest digital literacy programmes in the world,” said a statement. As many as 25 lakh candidates will be trained in FY 2016-17, 275 lakh in FY 2017-18 and 300 lakh candidates in FY 2018-19. Further, to ensure equitable geographical reach, each of the 250,000 gram panchayats in the country will be expected to register an average of 200-300 candidates.
Digitally literate persons would be able to operate computers and digital access devices such as tablets and smart phones, send and receive emails, browse internet, access government services, search for information, undertake cashless transactions, among other things.
The implementation of the scheme would be carried out under the overall supervision of Ministry of Electronics and IT in active collaboration with States/UTs through their designated state implementing agencies, District e-Governance Society (DeGS), etc, the statement added.
As per the 71st NSSO Survey on Education 2014, only 6% of rural households have a computer, highlighting that more than 15 crore rural households do not have computers and a significant number of these households are likely to be digitally illiterate.
