Can't reach your MLA? e-mail him or her. Information Technology Minister Poongothai Aladi Aruna, informed the Assembly on Monday that all members of the Assembly would be provided an e-mail id soon to serve the people they represent more effectively.
The e-mail id would be generic to the constituency and hence would be used by the next MLA representing the constituency too. Details were being worked out, she added.
Earlier members who spoke on the demand for grants, including D. Ravikumar (VCK) and Dilli Babu (CPI-M), wanted the Minister to concentrate on rural BPOs.
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They pointed out that the model set up in Krishnagiri by a former Collector (who is now the ELCOT Managing Director) Santhosh Babu should be replicated across the State.
Mr. Ravikumar also wanted all speeches made by MLAs in the Assembly uploaded the same day for the benefit of the people. This was the system in both Houses of Parliament.
The Minister said youth in the rural areas were the focus of the IT department. A special programme to train students from rural areas in a corporate setting with the assistance of established private companies would be initiated in a phased manner.
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The IT department would promote rural BPOs in all districts. A specific policy and implementation process for rural BPOs would be defined shortly by the department to enable IT-enabled service organisations to benefit from a cost advantage situation.
Colour TV sets
The Minister said the government had decided to distribute 1,52,80,000 colour television sets free to the people at a cost of Rs.3,480.83 crore. Of this, 1,15,42,800 had already been distributed. Steps were being taken to distribute the remaining 37,37,200 sets over the next six months.
The Minister said a pilot project on wireless connectivity would be tried out in the Nilgiris. Right now wired connectivity was mainly utilised to provide Internet facilities. Wireless connectivity needed to be provided wherever it was found to be more feasible.