Mass Computer Literacy Program In Telangana

One of the core objectives of the National Policy on IT is to make one person in every household in the country e-literate, and towards this end, ITE&C Secretary Harpreet Singh officially launched the Centre's "Scheme for IT Mass Literacy" program in Telangana on Saturday, and explained the importance of digital literacy to citizens in the rural areas.

ESD Director B Sridhar and CSC SPV CEO Dr. Dinesh Kumar Tyagi signed an MoU in the presence of Harpreet Singh. Joint Collectors Sarfaraz Ahmed (Karimnagar) and Dr. Preeti Meena (Nalgonda), and Special Officer GADA Hanumantha Rao participated in the program, and assured full support at the district level.

Four pilot mandals in four districts have been identified for the implementation of this project. They are Gajwel (Medak), Suryapeta (Nalgonda), Sircilla (Karimnagar) and Achampet (Mehaboobnagar). Singh distributed tablet computers to 40 Meeseva operators (VLEs) who came from the four pilot mandals.

A total of 30,000 people will be trained under the NDLM - IT Mass Literacy program (7,500 per mandal) in the first phase. NDLM learning centers will be set up in these locations accessible to people, and training will be imparted and assessments done from here.

The brand name for the mission in Telangana will be Prati Inta e-Sakshatha.

An objective of this program is to make a person computer-literate so that he can operate a computer, mobile phone & other basic digital device(s), send and receive emails, and search the Internet. There are two categories of training: L1 - a 20-hour course, and L2 - a 40-hour course.

The program will identify non computer-literate persons who are 14-60 years old, and train them on computers. 10 VLEs (Meeseva operators) from each mandal have been identified to carry out a survey to identify the non computer-literate persons. 60,000 people will be surveyed in these mandals to identify 30,000 beneficiaries.

The tablets distributed to the VLEs are loaded with an NDLM application to facilitate the process in which the NDLM beneficiary data is collected digitally and submitted to the NDLM server.

For BPL families, a wage loss compensation of Rs. 300 for those in the L1 category and Rs. 600 for those in the L2 category of training has been provisioned.

The NDLM beneficiary survey in Telangana is estimated to be completed by the 10th of January 2015, and the training of the beneficiaries will be completed by 31st March 2015. (INN)