Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA)

Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA)

Subject – Government Schemes

Context – Digital literacy index in T.N. already high: Union Minister

Concept –

• The Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA) being initiated under Digital India Programme would cover 6 crore households in rural areas to make them digitally literate.
• The scheme to make six crore persons in rural areas, across States/UTs, digitally literate, reaching to around 40% of rural households by covering one member from every eligible household till 31st March, 2020.
• The Scheme aims to bridge the digital divide, specifically targeting the rural population including the marginalised sections of society like Scheduled Castes (SC) / Scheduled Tribes (ST), Minorities, Below Poverty Line (BPL), women and differently-abled persons and minorities.
• Earlier, the Government had implemented the National Digital Literacy Mission or the Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (DISHA) or National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) to impart IT training to 52.5 lakh persons, including Anganwadi and ASHA workers and authorised ration dealers in all the States/UTs across the country
• The non-IT literate citizens are trained to become IT literate so as to enable them to actively and effectively participate in the democratic and developmental process and also enhance their livelihood.

Eligibility

• The Scheme is applicable only for rural areas of the country.
• Eligible Household: A household is defined as a unit comprising of Head of family, spouse, children and parents. All such households where none of the family member is digitally literate will be considered as eligible household under the Scheme.
• Entry criteria
  • The beneficiary should be Digitally Illiterate
  • Only one person per eligible household would be considered for training
  • Age Group: 14 – 60 years
• Priority would be given to
  • Non-smartphone users, Antyodaya households, college drop-outs, Participants of the adult literacy mission
  • Digitally illiterate school students from class 9th to 12th, provided facility of Computer/ICT Training is not available in their schools
• Preference would be given to SC, ST, BPL, women, differently-abled persons and minorities
• The identification of the beneficiaries would be carried out by CSC-SPV in active collaboration with DeGS, Gram Panchayats, and Block Development Officers. The list of such beneficiaries would be made available on the scheme portal.

Implementation

The implementation of the Scheme would be carried out under the overall supervision of Ministry of Electronics and IT in active collaboration with States/UTs through their designated State Implementing Agencies, District e-Governance Society (DeGS), etc.

Training process

The duration of the training program is for 20 hours which has to be completed in a minimum of 10 days and maximum of 30 days.