Question : Cyber Gram

a) the details of number of States that have implemented the minority cyber-gram since it was formally launched in 2014 in the country, district-wise including Rajasthan;

b) the number of States that have sent proposals for implementation of the scheme and the proposals that have been approved till date;

c) the steps taken by the Government to improve the compliance and implementation in States for the benefit of minorities;

d) whether the Government bears the burden for buying the equipment needed for implementation of the scheme and if so, the details thereof, State-wise and district-wise and the funds spent for the scheme under the Multi-Sectoral Development Programme (MSDP);

e) whether the Government proposes to conduct a performance audit of the scheme and if so, the details thereof; and

f) whether the Government has selected heritages under Hamari Dharohar scheme and if so, the details of heritages selected country-wise and if not, the reasons therefor?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF MINORITY AFFAIRS
(SHRI MUKHTAR ABBAS NAQVI)

(a) to (b): A pilot project namely “Minority Cyber Gram ” was launched in February, 2014 for imparting Digital Literacy in a minority dominated village Chanduli in Alwar district, Rajasthan in association with an organization namely Digital Empowerment Foundation. The village has 1300 households. 2600 persons (2 per family) including non minorities in the village were selected for Digital Literacy. The project has been completed and so far 2890 persons have benefited from the programme. After the success of the pilot project, Ministry has mainstreamed the Cyber Gram Programme within the scheme of Multi-sectoral Development Programme (MsDP) from 2014-15, and guidelines were issued to all State Government/ UT administration.

‘Cyber Gram’ has been launched as an initiative under Multi-sectoral Development Programme(MsDP) to provide hands on training in computers to the students of minority communities and enable them to acquire basic Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills; become digitally literate; actively participate in knowledge based activities; access financial, social and government services and use internet for communications. The initiative covers students of Class VI to Class X belonging to notified minority communities residing in minority concentration areas. Under the initiative, training of 3,71,657 students of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tripura and Rajasthan have been approved so far, with the total cost of Rs.57.79 crore. The proposal of Maharshtra has been in-principal approved.

(c) To improve the compliance and implementation of projects in States, the Government has made a provision of robust mechanism for monitoring of the programme. The monitoring of the programme is done through the following channels:
(1) Monitoring through Committees constituted at different levels starting from Blocks to the Centre
(2) Monitoring through independent agency/qualified monitors
(3) Monitoring through conferences at national, regional, State and district levels and visits of officials to the project sites.


(d) Under cybergram initiative of Multi-sectoral Development Programme, there is no provision for purchase of equipments. Hence no funds for purchase of equipment for implementation of cybergram initiative of MsDP has been sanctioned to States/UTs.

(e) No, Madam. There is no proposal to conduct performance audit of the Cybergram initiative under MsDP separately.

(f) “The Scheme Hamari Dharohar was launched during the year 2014-15. The scheme aims to preserve rich culture and heritage of minorities through selective intervention under the overall concept of Indian culture. Under this scheme during the year 2015-16, following two projects have been selected and approved:

(i) Organization of the international iconic exhibition ‘The Everlasting Flame’, to preserve the rich heritage of Parsi Community of India. The Programme includes three international exhibitions namely “The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination”, “Threads of Continuity” and “Painted Encounters—Parsi Traders and the Community”, to be hosted at the National Museum, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) and National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) at New Delhi during 19th March to 29th May, 2016.

(ii) Project for Digitization, Translation from Arabic to English, and reprinting of Medieval period documents on Medicines, Mathematics, Science and Literature and rare manuscripts kept at Dairatul Maarifil Osmania, Osmania University, Hyderabad.


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