Lok Sabha Question No. 2962 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-12-15
Subject: IT facilities for Students
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Vinod Chavda

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2962

TO BE ANSWERED ON:  15.12.2021

## IT FACILITIES FOR STUDENTS

## 2962.   SHRI VINOD L. CHAVDA:

Will the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology be pleased to state:-

- (a) whether  electronics  and  IT  facilities  are  not  available  to  the  students  of  economically weaker sections in the  country and if so, the details thereof along  with reaction of the Government thereto; and
- (b) the details of the steps taken by the Government in this regard?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI ASHWINI VAISHNAW)

(a) and (b):    The Government of India has created electronics and IT facilities across the country for the students. The details of the initiatives taken by the Government to provide electronics and IT facilities to the students including the students of economically weaker sections of the country are as under:

- i) The Samagra Shiksha initiative of Ministry of Education(MoE) is a programme for the school education  sector  extending  from  pre-school  to  class  XII  and  aims  to  ensure  inclusive  and equitable  quality  education  at  all  levels  of  school  education.  Under  the  Information  & Communication Technology (ICT) component of the Scheme, there is a provision to impart computer literacy  and  computer  enabled  learning  to  children,  by  developing  and  deploying curriculum based interactive multimedia, digital books, virtual labs etc. across the country. It supports establishment of smart classrooms, and  ICT labs in schools, including support for hardware, educational software and e-content for teaching. So far under this initiative, ICT Labs have been approved in 1,14,917 schools and the Smart classrooms have been approved in 58499 schools across the country.
2. ii)  Ministry  of  Electronics  and  IT  (MeitY)  has  setup  National  Institute  of  Electronics  & Information  Technology  (NIELIT),  to  carry  out  Human Resource Development  and  related activities in the area of Information, Electronics & Communications Technology (IECT). At present, NIELIT has forty-three (43) Centre's located across the country including 22 Centers in  the  North  Eastern  Region  and  Centres  at  Kargil,  Leh,  Daman  etc.  NIELIT  is  also  well

networked throughout India with the presence of about 700 + accredited Centres. Under the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP), the students of weaker section (viz. SC, ST etc) are being provided with free training in electronics and IT domain.

- iii) Ministry of Electronics and IT has implemented OLabs(Online Labs) as a National platform for  students  to  practice  procedural,  manipulative,  observational  and  interpretive  in  Science subjects.  There  are  173  Online  Labs  available  covering  various  subjects  viz.  Physics(54), Chemistry(46), Biology(36), Maths(25), and English(12). The OLabs  contents are available  in the public domain

at www.olabs.edu.in. These online labs are covering Simulators, Animations, Videos along with theoretical  knowledge.  As  on  date  4  Lakh  learners  are  using  the  platform  and  over  50,000 teachers have been trained.

- iv) Under the IT for Masses Programme of MeitY, in order to narrow down the digital divide in the country, activities in ICT domain for focused groups (Women, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Senior Citizen, Differently Abled &  Economic  Weaker  Section (EWS))  and underprivileged areas (North Eastern Region, Backward Districts and Blocks & Districts having more than 40% SC/ST population) for inclusive growth of IT Sectors through Infrastructure Creation, Training, Capacity Building & Entrepreneurship Creation activities in IT domain are being implemented.  Under  this programme,  Grant-in-Aid  support  is provided for IT Infrastructure Creation,  Deployment of IT Tools, IT and Electronics Training and Capacity Building, Cluster Development & Entrepreneurship Creation activities in IT domain.
- v)  MeitY  along  with  Ministry  of  Tribal  Affairs  (MoTA)  has  initiated  setting  up  of  intelligent educational infrastructure in 170 Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS).
- vi) MeitY has initiated setting up of ICT infrastructure in 40 Government schools across eight north eastern states for personalized adaptive learning by providing smart ICT facilities viz. interactive board, internet facilities and virtual reality contents for the students of class 7 to 10.

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