Lok Sabha Question No. 1094 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-03-02
Subject: IT Awareness in Rural Areas
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: N.K. PREMACHANDRAN

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1094

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 02.03.2016

## IT AWARENESS IN RURAL AREAS

## 1094       SHRI N.K. PREMACHANDRAN:

Will the Minister of Communications & Information Technology be pleased to state: -

- (a) whether the Government proposes to introduce cyber cafes in rural areas of the country;
- (b) if so, the details there of;
- (c) the action taken by Government to increase the IT awareness in rural areas of the country;
- (d) whether the Government proposes to introduce the software and Internet websites in Indian regional language on a large scale;
- (e) if so, the details thereof;
- (f) whether the Government proposes to increase the internet connectivity in the State of Kerala considering the most profitable BSNL circle in the country and if so, the action taken thereon;   and
- (g) whether  the  Government  proposes  to  use  the  IT  for  helping  villagers  in  the  areas  of education, training, health-care, agriculture etc., and if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)

(a)  and  (b):      The  Government  does  not  propose  to  introduce  cyber  cafes  in  rural  areas.  The Government has rolled out Common Services Centres(CSC) at 1,21,963 Gram Panchayats till February 2016. It is envisaged to set up at least one CSC in each of 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats over a period of four years. The Government has approved India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS) for promotion of BPO/ITES operations across the country including small towns and rural areas for  balanced  growth  of  Information  Technology  &  Information  Technology  Enabled  Services (IT/ITES) sector in each State.

(c):    The  Government  is  implementing  two  schemes  viz.  National  Digital  Literacy  Mission (NDLM) and Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (DISHA) to provide digital literacy to the masses with a cumulative target of training 52.5 lakh persons. So far, under these two Schemes more than 50 lakh candidates have been enrolled, 38.61 lakh trained and 15.64 lakh certified.

(d)  and  (e):    Government  of  India  has  developed  Fonts,  Unicode  Typing  Tool  and  Localised Libre Office for 22 recognized Indian languages which can be used to create websites in Indian Regional Languages. These software and tools are available free of cost at http://www.ildc.in

- (f):   BSNL is constantly taking steps to increase broadband penetration in the State of Kerala. Till date 80 Wi-Fi Hotspots have been provided at 30 locations in Kerala and by March 2016, 80 more Hotspots are expected to be installed. In addition, BSNL has also planned to install around 3,500 Wi-Fi hotspots for Wi-Fi offload in Kerala.

(g):  CSC  Portal  is  an  interface  of  integrated  service  access  portals  of different  departments  / organizations. Various Government to Citizen (G2C) and Business to Citizen (B2C) services etc. can be delivered through CSCs, if the respective departments / organizations allow integration of their service portals with CSC portal. The CSCs are offering various services like:

- -Government  to  Citizen(G2C)  Services :  UID  Enrolment  and  E-Aadhaar  Printing Services,  Election  Commission  of  India  (EC)  Services,    Passport  Services,   Issue  of certificates,  Land  records,  Collection  of  Land  revenue,  Registration,  Employment Exchange, etc
- -Business to Citizen (B2C) Services :   Mobile  Recharge,  Mobile  Bill  Payment,  DTH Recharge,   Money  Transfer, Data  Card  Recharge  ,  CSC  Bazaar,   LIC  Premium,  Bus ticketing, SBI Life, Bill Cloud, IRCTC Service (through IRCTC authorized centres), etc
- -Educational Services: Adult Literacy, Education and training, Digital Literacy, etc .

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