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The Union Cabinet and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved one of the worlds largest digital literacy program Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA). The mission behind the initiative is to create digital awareness in the rural India and make 6 crore rural households literate. The budget of Rs. 2,351.38 crores is allocated to the program and target date for the is March 2019. The initiative was infact declared by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during the Union Budget 2016-17.
The goal of the scheme is to educate 25 lakh people in the year 2016-17, 275 lakh in year 2017-18 and 300 lakh candidates in the year 2018-19. The focus of the scheme is to make sure that these candidates should be able to operate computers, tablets, laptops and smartphones, send and receive emails, browse internet and use digital transactions mediums for money transfers and payments.
The digital literacy will certainly boost digital economy and people can use digital mediums to interact with the government agencies. The implementation of the scheme is given to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and state governments and union territories. The training programs will also focus on the Mobile Banking, Digital Wallets, BHIM App, ADHAAR pay apps, Unified Payment Interfaces (UPI), Adhaar Enabled Payment Systems (AEPS).
At present the digital literacy is very poor in the rural India. The 71st NSSO Survey on Education says that only 6% of the rural household has computers. The Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA) program is focusing on 6% of the reaming 96% of the rural households to make digital literate.
