Areas Covered

Arain, Ajmer, Rajasthan

Arain village, one of the biggest villages in Arian Panchayat is the first village to have NOFN line provided by USOF & BBNL.  Although Arain village is the block headquarters of Arain block,  and has many facilities such as banks, a hospital, a police  station, a post office, a bus station and several government offices, in general there is no culture of digital life or the Internet.  On November 10, 2012, DEF & Intel Corporation established its NDLM centre at Gram Panchayat Office of Arian panchayat located at Ajmer district in the state of Rajasthan.  NDLM at Arain started with 8 laptops and 2 netbooks, comprising of 30 students from 30 different households.

At Arain, more than 250 rural candidates have been trained on digital literacy programme within three months since the launch of NDLM centre at Arain panchayat. The training has been conducted in three batches of size 30 candidates. The third batch completed on 13 February, 2013.  

Naugang, Panisagar, North Tripura

Naugang is the second identified panchayat where NOFN line has been reached in Panisagar, subdivision-cum-block of North Tripura District. Naogang is the 14th number Panchayat of Panisagar block. Situated near by 43 National Highway, the panchayat is dominated by tribal community (Halam, Debbarma). Approximately 70% of panchayat area is covered with NOFN line.

Naugang is a Panchayat under Panisagar block of North Tripura District. It is 200 Km away from Agartala, capital of  Tripura which is the third-smallest state in the country, is bordered by Bangladesh to the north, south, and west, and the Indian states of Assam and Mizoram to the east.  The Naugang Panchayat is dominated by indigenous Halam and Ranglang community which has 409 families. These people are Kuki tribe native to the state of Tripura in India. The name Halam is coined by the Tipra Raja. They are also known as Mizo. Socio economic condition of the community is not good. They are living with traditional and nature friendly way. The economic life of Halam and Ranglong is mainly based on food gathering and food production along with some other activities. As a food gathering they collect edible leaves, roots, stems and tubers from the jungles. They catch fish from the nearby rivulets grow food grains by jhum cultivation, which is also the main occupation and nearly 80% of them still based it as a means of livelihood. A majority of the families are under below poverty line set by the Indian government. This Panchayat has 70 percent literacy rate where 70 percent males are literate whereas 65 percent females are literate. The sex ration in this region is 1000:960.

Muthyalammapalem, Vizag, Andhra Pradesh

Muthyalammapalem is one of the poorest villages in Andhra Pradesh. There are 454 fishermen families with 1840 population. The IT revolution has bypassed Indian villages like Muthyalammapalem.

Andhra Pradesh, a city struggling to cope with rapid growth on the back of a vibrant IT industry, is still growing. Luxury towers in mid-construction are sprouting, with billboards advertising helipads for aspirational – and wealthy – tenants. The traffic is hellish as three-wheeler auto-taxis, cars and buses compete for space amid a cacophony of klaxons. But, the story of villages like Muthyalammapalem shows stark inequalities – often along caste, religious and gender lines. And in some ways, this has become a vicious circle.

As per mythology, the villagers of Muthyalammapalem turn the bottom of their cot(bed) upward. They believe that if they don’t follow it, the person sitting on the cot can die during rituals. There is also superstition of animal sacrifices during worship of god. The villagers believe that such rituals and animal sacrifices for the goddess will bring prosperity.

Despite Andhra Pradesh IT based expanding economy, the fruits of rising wealth—and opportunities for economic and social mobility—have largely bypassed many rural areas like Muthyalammapalem.

The truth is that out of 454 families, 453 families are below poverty line. Fisheries contribute to their livelihoods. As per official data, in this village total 421 people are involved in fishing, 154 women are involved in selling fish and 66 women are daily wage labourers.

NDLM Components

Why National Digital Literacy Mission Programme?

  • Initiate entrepreneurship and bring uniform digital Literacy
  • Bring socio-economic impact at rural regions;
  • Digital Literacy: Tools for Information Society
  • NDLM and Supplementary Education
  • Helped Learning to Think Critically: Youths and Digital Literacy Skills
  • NDLM and Women Empowerment
  • NDLM as Knowledge Centres

NDLM Stakeholders

BBNL: Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), BBNL was incorporated as a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) company under Companies Act of 1956. BBNL was incorporated on 25 February 2012. On 25 October 2011 the government of India approved the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) to connect all 2, 50,000 Gram panchayats (GPs) in the country. This is to be achieved utilizing the existing optical fiber and extending it to the Gram panchayats. BSNL, RailTel and PGCIL have been assigned the execution work by BBNL.BSNL, RailTel, PGCIL, C-DOT, TCIL and NIC are working with BBNL on the NOFN Project. The funding of the project is from USOF.

INTEL: As part of the National Digital Literacy Mission, the government has decided to make one per family e-literate and Intel is one of the ecosystem players.

DEF: Ten years back, Digital Empowerment Foundation was founded to uplift the downtrodden and to create economic and commercial viability using Information Communication and Technology as means.  When Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) established Bharat Broadband Network Ltd (BBNL), DEF complemented BBNL efforts by developing the National Digital Literacy Mission Programme (NDLM). While BBNL lays out the optic fibre cable in each of the 250,000 gram panchayats in the country, NDLM the national digital literacy mission program assists with digital literacy awareness, education and capacity programmes. When a panchayat in Arain (Rajasthan) received the fibre optic line, NDLM followed the fibre and set up a training centre. The training centre is well equipped with 15 net books which will be used by the first batch of 30 students.

Panchayat Committee:  Panchayats Constituencies have a major role in NDLM. The Digital Literacy Mission (DLM) is creating multi-stakeholder, consortium and working with government to showcase in some of those panchayats constituencies that how making them digitally literate can change the scenario of governance, empowerment, social inclusion, educational approach and employment.