Hyderabad: As the state government sets a massive target of reaching 8.3 million households through its digital literacy programme, the benchmark for digital literacy has been upped several notches to include e-shopping, e-marketing apart from the traditional requirement of sending and receiving emails.
While the basic literacy benchmark is just being able to write one’s name, the digital literacy benchmark is aimed at a complete transition to e-governance and eventually to mobile governance or mgovernance.
As part of providing the required infrastructure, 4G broadband connectivity to every household by laying extensive optic fibre networks, setting up of 8,650 centers at gram panchayats to provide access to computers, laptops, printers along with internet connectivity and Wi-Fi connectivity at important cities has been planned.
“Apart from supplying the components, we are also looking at the demand side component by making one member in each household ‘digitally literate’ to ensure that the benefits percolate down to each household,” said Telangana IT secretary Jayesh Ranjan.
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“The benchmark has been set high. One should be able to receive and send emails and surf the Internet, be able to gather basic information apart from having an e-mail account, as a test,” Mr Ranjan said.
The plan also includes educating all students from Class VI in schools in computer education. The idea is to “catch them young”, so that children will become familiar with the internet. As they graduate to higher classes, the entire educational content will be delivered online to the students in schools.
“As most of the children are in schools, we will be introducing them to digital classrooms slowly after they start gaining computer knowledge from Class VI onwards. Delivering content digitally will enable students to draw benefit of good teachers available elsewhere. We also plan to progressively change the entire citizen services available on the Mee Seva to the mobile platform,” added the official.
Reliance to provide digital connectivity:
The IT department has got on board Reliance to cover the entire state with broadband connectivity, which is required for the digital literacy programme. Wi-Fi in major cities and Digital Telangana centers in panchayats will also be used to provide connectivity.
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The Digital Telangana centers in 8,650 panchayats will not only house devices, but also have people who will work towards generating awareness among the people about the need for digital literacy. Piggybacking on the Water Grid project, Digital Telangana will cut costs for laying cables by 60 to 70 per cent. Combined tenders for both the projects have been floated.
A number of telecom companies including Reliance and Airtel plan to roll out 4G services. The state government has already received a commitment from Reliance Jio to cover every inch of the state before end-2015, and the IT department is hopeful of rolling out 4G connectivity by end of 2015. The government is yet to ascertain the price at which the Internet facility can be offered, but a draft proposal pegs it at an affordable '100 to '150 per month. The exact cost will be worked out with the telecom operators once all agreements are finalised.
