Deadline of digital literacy programme 'Disha' advanced by 4 years

NEW DELHI: TheDepartment of IT and Electronics (DeitY) has advanced the deadline of ambitious digital literacy programme ‘Disha’ by four years.

“Digital literacy is a fundamental part of Digital India programme. We are now trying to advance the target of training 52 lakh individuals by December 2016,” DeitY joint secretary Ajay Kumar told ET. He said digital training of 18 lakh people is currently underway.

Disha is a pan-India digital literacy programme, based on public-private partnership, which aims to provide education for free and allow monetary benefits to those living below poverty line.

The Narendra Modi government initially aimed to make at least one family member digitally literate by reaching out to 52 lakh citizens till 2020. The department, according to Kumar, is making additional efforts to make available content in local languages and leverage mobility devices to make the initiative citizen friendly.

The government is leveraging 1,800 training partners for this initiative and has roped in Nasscom Foundation and Intel as industry partners. Meanwhile, German software company SAP has partnered Nasscom Foundation to start 25 National Digital Literacy Mission centres across 12 cities. The foundation aims to increase the number to 125 centres by March 2016 from 76 such centres that are currently operational.