Lok Sabha Question No. 633 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-07-20
Subject: Capacity Building in IT
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: RAMESH BIDHURI

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 633

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 20.07.2016

## CAPACITY BUILDING IN  IT

## 633. SHRI RAMESH BIDHURI:

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

- (a) whether the Government has made a road-map for capacity building in the field of rural IT infrastructure;
- (b) if so, the details thereof; and
- (c) the steps taken to strengthen the digital education in rural areas particularly among the rural youths?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER  OF STATE FOR MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI P.P. CHAUDHARY)

- (a) to (c):  Yes, Sir. The Government of India has undertaken following initiatives for capacity building in field of rural IT infrastructure:
- i) National  Optical  Fibre  Network  (NOFN):  The  Government    has  approved,  'National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN)/BharatNet' , to establish network infrastructure to connect all the Gram Panchayats (2.5 lakh) in the country by laying incremental fibre to bridge the connectivity gap  between  Gram  Panchayats  and  Blocks  or  through  radio/satellite  for  providing  broadband connectivity.  It  is  being  implemented  through  a  Special  Purpose  Vehicle  (SPV),  Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL). Till June,2016 more than 50,465 Gram Panchayats (GPs) have been connected with OFC.
- ii) Under Digital India programme, the Government has launched CSC 2.0 Scheme to set up at  least  one  Common Service Centre (CSC) to cover all the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats of the Country  for  delivery  of  various  electronic  services  to  citizens  across  rural  India.  This  would include strengthening and integrating the existing 100,000 CSCs under the original CSC scheme and making operational an additional 1.5 lakh CSCs in Gram Panchayats. The Project is to be implemented over a period of 4 years. Till June,2016  a total number of  1,22,793 CSCs have been rolled out at Gram Panchayat level.
- iii) The Government is implementing following schemes for providing digital education and literacy to the masses (including rural India):
- (a) Department of  Electronics & Information Technology ( DeitY) is implementing a project viz; 'Course on Computer Education in Rural India' for Training and Certification of one lakh Common Service Centre (CSC) Operators/ Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLE) in  every  state  of  the  country  with  financial  support  of  Rs.  750.00  lakh  through  National Institute  of  Electronics  and  Information  Technology  (NIELIT),  an  autonomous  society under  DeitY.  Under  this  project,  a  total  of  1,00,000  VLEs  are  targeted  for  Course  on Computer Concepts (CCC) by March, 2017.
- (b)  DeitY  is  implementing  a  project  viz;  'Empowering  Women  in  Rural  India  through Digital Literacy (WDLP) with an outlay of  Rs. 287.50 lakh through NIELIT, with an aim at training and empowering 25,000 rural women. The training and examination of 25,000 women has been completed.
- (c)  National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) scheme was approved in March 2014 with an aim to train 10 lakh person with a total budget outlay of Rs. 97.02 crore.
- (d) Digital  Empowerment  of  citizens  by  providing  Universal  Digital  Literacy  is  an integral component of the vision of 'Digital India' initiative. Keeping this in view, a scheme entitled 'Digital Saksharta Abhiyan' (DISHA) to make 42.5 lakh persons digitally literate in selected households throughout the country was approved in December 2014.

Both the above schemes on digital literacy are being implemented concurrently and so far around 72.92 lakh candidates have been trained and approximately 33.15 lakh candidates have been certified. A total of 1952 training partners are involved under these schemes. Out of  these  Training  Partners/  Training  Centres,  around  57%  exist  in  rural  areas  (including nearly 30,000 CSCs).

(e) A scheme to make 6 crore rural households digitally literate has also been drawn up in the current financial year.

- iv) A scheme for setting up/upgrading of  NIELIT centres is also under implementation to cover rural and remote parts of the country in J&K and North East (NE). The Scheme entails setting  up  of  10  new  extension  centres  and  upgradation  of  8  existing  centres  in  NE.  One extension centre in Leh district of J&K has also been setup.

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