Digital Literacy In Rural Areas

To enhance digital adoption, MeitY is focusing on providing digital literacy to the citizens across the country especially in the rural areas. In line with this, the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA) was approved by Union Cabinet in February 2017 to usher in digital literacy in rural India with a target to cover 6 crore rural households (1 person per household) across the country.

So far, a total of around 6.15 crore candidates have been enrolled and 5.24 crore have been trained, out of which 3.89 crore candidates have been certified under the PMGDISHA Scheme.

The PMGDISHA scheme is being implemented across the rural India including the state of Madhya Pradesh. Against the indicative target of 37.84 lakh, so far, 45.42 lakh candidates have been trained, out of which, 33.51 lakh candidates have been duly certified in Madhya Pradesh under the scheme.

Government has carried out, three impact assessment studies for PMGDISHA scheme. The last impact assessment study of the scheme was carried out by Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) in FY 2020-21. IIPA, after the comprehensive and methodological evaluation of scheme, concluded in the report that PMGDISHA as a digital literacy programme plays an indispensable part in not only bridging the digital gap in the country but also transforming it into a knowledge economy and society.

There seems to be a good demand for acquiring digital literacy in the rural areas as can be seen by the number of enrolments to the tune of more than 6.15 crore under the PMGDISHA scheme.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

Source-PIB