Question : Digital Literacy in Rural Areas

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

(a) the action plan of the Government for increasing digital literacy in rural areas along with the status of the schemes being implemented by the Government at present;

(b) the name of the scheme being implemented in Madhya Pradesh for increasing digital literacy along with the status thereof; and

(c) whether the Government has conducted any survey to assess whether aptitude for digital literacy is also increasing in rural areas?

Answer given by the minister

(a): To enhance digital adoption, MeitYis focusing on providing digital literacy to the citizens across the country especially in the rural areas. In line with this, the Pradhan MantriGramin Digital SakshartaAbhiyan (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.

(b): The PMGDISHA scheme is beingimplementedacross the rural Indiaincluding 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.

(c): 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

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