Digital India Programme to Recover Inferior Standard of Computer Literacy in India

BENGALURU: Rapid exploration of technology has forced the human race to sharpen their computer skills as it is the next thing to look out for. Going with the same trend, Indian culture is going through a digital upheaval that eliminates manual efforts by weaving computerized waves in working sectors, educational institutes, and government sectors. It has been noticed that India has still not developed its knowledge in computer literacy.

Based on an article published in The Times of India, here presenting a glance of the India’s current scenario in computer literacy across the nation including their respective literate percentage within rural areas.

The current report of NOSS demonstrates that some of the Indian states and villages are maintaining an inferior standard in computer literacy. It is thus expected that the big announcement of Digital India campaign by the Indian Government will make a drastic change on the present scenario.

 The core expansion of computer knowledge embraces digital literacy that reflects several ways of quick accesses, facilitating easy collaboration procedures and sharing of knowledge.  On the other hand it increases reliance in digital modes of communication.  The necessity of global access to knowledge with an interest in increasing more multilingual and multi-literacy online environments embraces digital technologies. Moreover, computer has become a mandatory asset of global business and the education culture and digital literacy has a direct effect on a country’s economy. 

A survey report highlights that in India there are 18% of rural youth population in the age segment of 14-29 who are able to operate a computer in comparison to the urban population that stakes 49%. The NSSO survey reported that only 27% have internet access as a household thing within the age limit of 14 and above.  Furthermore, the discrete figure reveals that for rural households the numbers moves down to 16% whereas 49% for urban.

It also been noticed that even the working sector are also facing lack of computer proficiencies as the survey mentioned only 14.2 percent are able to type and use word processing.  The surveyed data also reflects the huge differentiations between rural and urban digital literacy where 14-29 years of urban males are three steps ahead than the rural males. According to the state’s report, Chhattisgarh carries 3.9% of population in using internet facility and 4.2% Bihar population are able to operate computers whereas Kerala stands up with 31.3%. It has been observed that Chhattisgarh comes with the lowest percentage i.e. 2.5 of households that having internet access in rural areas whereas in Kerala, there are half of the rural households has internet access. Urban areas of Chhattisgarh have lowest access to internet with 24.9% as compared to the state like Kerala that shows 62.1% and Maharashtra with 64.6% have prominently higher share of households having internet accesses.

The Government of India has recently declared Digital India Programme to transform India into a digitally empowered society. The programme includes various schemes that worth over Rs 1 lakh crore like Digital Locker, e-eduction, e-health, e-sign and national scholarship portal. The BharatNet in 11 states and Next Generation Network (NGN), are also a part of Digital India Programme. The motto of the programme embraces Broadband Highways, Universal Access to Phones, Public Internet Access Programme and many more.

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