THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A Digital Empowerment Campaign being rolled out across the state aims at digitally empowering about 10 lakh citizens by September 2016 in its first phase.
The project initiated by the Kerala State IT Mission in association with Student Police Cadets (SPCs), was piloted in rural parts of Thiruvananthapuram last year and has so far imparted digital literacy to about 4,000 people at the grassroot level. Considering the effectiveness of the programme, the government has decided to go for a statewide roll out in a phased manner.
“In the initial phase, selected regions of all districts will be covered. We hope to digitally empower 10 lakh citizens within six months in the first phase,” said Kerala State IT Mission director Mr.Mohammed Y Safirulla.
The project aims at bridging the digital divide by imparting training on aspects like e-governance services, e-payments and even online purchases to the grassroot level with the help of SPCs.
In the pilot stage, the project was initiated in ten schools in rural parts of Thiruvananthapuram in September last. Ten tablet computers with specially designed learning modules were supplied to each school and trained SPCs of the schools imparted training to those in the locality.
In the first-phase, about 5600 tablets would be supplied to about 280 schools - 20 schools in each district. The estimated expense of the first phase would be around Rs. 17 crore which would be met from the unspent amount of Rs. 24 crore available with district collectors from e-literacy programmes.
The training is imparted using a specially developed online training module. A simple test of 10 questions would be given to the candidates after the training. A certificate of the IT Mission would be given to those who pass the test.
