BY 2022 will India achieve 100% Digital Literacy?

With elections nearing, every metrics of development and enhancement of our country will be put under a lens, Digital literacy is one such metrics. When we deal with functional literacy, one that enables a person to understand the basic functionalities of business and other day-to-day transactions, almost 40% of our population are illiterate. But the other side of the coin, sings a different tale.

Thanks to the revolution in the communication sector, our country is gradually moving towards a digital future. And the irony to be noted is that we have higher number of digital literacy in India when compared to traditional literacy. Hence government has to concentrate on making India more digital literate than traditional literate.

The present situation in India in this regard, is quite scary.

Digital Literacy

While we have achieved commendable strides in certain areas, we have yet to cover a vast portion to unleash our unexplored skill force that could contribute in making India the future power. To prepare India for the coming generations, we should strive in making at least one adult from each household, to be digitally literate.

However, targeting a population of 330 million, in the absence of a dedicated and vast budget, would be next to impossible. Hence, we have to adapt a different method.

Recipe for 100% digital literacy by 2022

The present government’s National Digital Literacy mission focuses on imparting digital literacy at primary school level itself. Once when every household has at least one single student or guardian digitally literate, it would help in increasing the digital literacy penetration as a whole.

The recipe to achieve 100% digital literacy is very simple, by employing the existing resources wisely. Here are some special areas which we could target

In India 70% of population are from rural side. By targeting them wisely we can increase the digital literacy levels. The rural development ministry can target around 3 million rural people through its Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology.

Local governing bodies like panchayats have three million elected members across the length and breadth of our nation. 98% of them are digitally illiterate. This category is the most important and basic category to target first for a deeper digital literacy penetration. Panchayati raj ministry can be targeted by involving 250,000 gramsabhas.

Another vast area where the government could focus its digital literacy efforts are the 18.7 million government officials. Giving them rigorous training in Information and Communication technology will produce definite and visible results.

The ministry of health and family affair have around 1.8 million health workers amongst which 80% are women. The ministry can offer digital literacy programmes to this population, by facilitating the digital literacy programmes and schemes for women involved in this sector. Bihar has already shown us the path for this mission by achieving notable strifes in this regard.