MPs help sought for students on mission digitisation

NEW DELHI: Barely a week after the Human Resource Development Ministry launched a dedicated mission enlisting students in higher education institutes as volunteers to disseminate and propagate the Centre’s digitalisation campaign, it is now reaching out to Members of Parliament for their support to the campaign, notwithstanding the opposition from some of them to the currency replacement drive.

Nearly 25,000 student volunteers from across institutes have so far enlisted themselves under the Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan launched by the ministry last week. Minister Prakash Javadekar now wants to enlist the support of all MPs as well to the mission, a source told ET.

Javadekar is set to send ‘appeals’ to all Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs from across party lines asking them to join the mission by visiting the higher education institutes, interacting with student volunteers, felicitating them for the initiative and boosting their morale for the effort.

A 62-page booklet for MPs is being created for the purpose detailing the Abhiyan. It has a four-point ‘Appeal to the Members of Parliament’.

The ministry will appeal to MPs to ‘kindly visit colleges/higher education institutions in their constituency’, ‘encourage registration of youth as volunteers’, ‘facilitate digital financial literacy efforts’ and ‘identify and recognise good efforts’.

The booklet ends with a quote from a recent ‘Mann Ki Baat’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where he exhorted citizens to go cashless on a mission mode and to help educate at least 10 in digital payment systems.

Terming the recent government decision on demonetisation as a move that has taken India “on the cusp of a major financial revolution, the HRD ministry has stated that the purpose of its abhiyan is “to actively engage the youth/students of higher education institutions to encourage and motivate all payers and payees to use a digitally enabled cashless economic system for transfer of funds’.

The ministry has even drawn up a action plan wherein from December 20, student volunteers after undergoing orientation sessions on digital payment systems from trainers will start work from their house and try to convince at least 10 households to switch to cashless transactions.

In January, volunteers will be required to submit reports backed with photos and details of the work done. NCC and NSS units will go a step further, identifying marketplaces and educating and then convincing vendors on the benefits of digitalisation.

The Abhiyan will go on till January 12, the HRD ministry has said.