BHUBANESWAR: As many as 30 villages in Odisha have been included in Centre’s pilot digital village project to showcase the transformation that Digital India Programme can bring about, to different stakeholders.
The pilot project intends to provide a platform for availability of services such as telemedicine, tele-education, LED street lighting, WiFi hotspot and skill development to the people at the gram panchayat level in select blocks.
A group of PHCs will be parented to a lead hospital at the district or state level. Various consultation sessions pertaining to different fields of medicine will be rendered under the telemedicine service. Similarly, a group of rural schools will be parented to a lead school under the tele-education service. The mode of communication would be two-way interactive sessions.
As part of the initiative of digitally empowering the citizens, free access to internet would be provided for at least five hours a day in the 30 villages.
Under the skill development service component, video-conferencing and other infrastructure facilities will be developed and used for providing skill development training, holding information sharing sessions and organising interactive sessions with experts and government officers.
In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said a total outlay of `98.32 crore has been allocated for implementation of Digital Village Pilot project. Around `3 crore (Rs 9.99 lakh per village) will be utilised for the implementation of the project in 30 villages of Odisha, he said.
“Apart from the 30 villages in Odisha, the Common Service Centre (CSC) e-Governance Service India limited is also offering citizen services through the digital medium in 4619 villages including 301 villages in the State under its own initiative through funds sourced from CSR,” he mentioned in the reply.
The villages included in the pilot project are Kumanda in Angul, Gaintala in Balangir, Sadanandpur in Balasore, Mahulpali in Bargarh, Pachhatira in Bhadrak, Manamunda in Boudh, Ramakrushnapur in Cuttack, Reamal in Deogarh, Sankulei in Dhenkanal, Jhami in Gajapati, Gobindpur in Ganjam, Balisahi in Jagatsinghpur, Achyuatabasant in Jajpur, Pakelpada in Jharsuguda and Kandel in Kalahandi.
Similarly, Brahmungadi in Kandhamal, Abdulpur in Kendrapara, Salabani in Keonjhar, Golabaisasan in Khurda, Girla in Koraput, Mathili in Malkangiri, Pratappur in Mayurbhanj, Sanabharandi in Nabarangpur, Kridashpur in Nayagarh, Gandabahali in Nuapada, Grahodanga in Puri, Muniguda in Rayagada, Ghichamura in Sambalpur, Chadeipank in Sonepur and Nuagaon in Sundargarh have been included.
Going digital