Introduction:
The world is facing a state of transition day by day and it
would not be incorrect to say that today’s world is getting Information
Centric. People are getting techno-savvy and this has become the need of the time that each every person who wants to leave their impression on the society
and mark their position, needs to be information literate. IT revolution, world
wide web development, developing trend of independent learning are major
factors that make it more crucial for one to develop his/her information
literacy skills as these skills awaken the user and not only makes him/her a better user of the information but also develops information creation habits
in the user.
According to ACRL, Information literacy is the set of
integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the
understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of
information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in
communities of learning[1]
This as well as several other definitions given by several
other experts of the field define information literacy in many different ways,
but the main focus is always on harvesting the needed information at the right
time and utilize the same to solve the problem. [2]
Information Literacy Programmes:
Information literacy is an important skill to survive in the
information age we are in today as in today’s age everything is connected or is
being connected to the information. Today information is power, information is
money and information is everything. And Information Literacy is the key to the
right information at the right time in the right format. So to make people
information literate, as much as possible, the government of India has initiated
several information literacy programmes which provide opportunity and resources
at various levels of the learning and wherever it is needed, to the user for
becoming information literate.
Despite the central government initiatives, various other
organizations such as NGOs, state governments, associations, Standardization
authorities, national institutions/organizations, etc. also work in the field of
providing better opportunities for the information seekers to transform them
form information illiterate to information literate.
National Information Literacy programmes in India:
Various information literacy programmes and initiatives that
got some recognition are as follows:
1.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)
In 2001, the government of India launched
its flagship program with an aim to achieve Universalization of Elementary
Education (UEE) in a time-bound manner, as mandated by the 86th amendment of the Indian
constitution-making free and compulsory Education to the children of 6 to 14
years of age, a fundamental right. Existing schools with inadequate teacher
strength are provided with additional teachers, training programs for
existing teachers are also provided under the mission. Infrastructure
development provisions are also made for classrooms, toilets, drinking water
etc.[3]
2.
National Literacy Mission (NLM)
National Literacy Mission (1998) was
constituted with an aim to achieve 75 percent literacy by the year 2007 by
providing opportunities of functional literacy to the age group of 15 to 35
years. Campaigns such as Total Literacy Campaign (TLC) started under the NLM
generated a demand for the primary education in various communities.[4]
3.
Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya
Scheme
Government of India in August 2004 launched
this scheme to ensure access and quality education to the girls of
disadvantaged groups of society by setting up residential schools at upper
primary level. The women belonging to SC/ST/OBC and those belonging to BPL
category were given priority under this scheme.[5]
4.
Janshala Programme
Five UN agencies namely UNDP, UNICEF,
UNESCO, ILO, and UNFPA made a collaborative effort with the government of India
for the Janshala programme (1998-2004). The main aim of the programme was to
make primary education easily accessible and more effective for the
children, with the main focus on girls and those children who belong to the
deprived communities.[6]
5.
Mahila Samakhya
Particularly focusing on women from
socially and economically marginalized groups, this programme was started in
1989 for the education and empowerment of women in rural areas.
6.
National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)
National e-Governance plan was
started and being implemented in various areas with a vision to make all
government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through
common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency &
reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the
common man. NeGP comprises of 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) to be implemented
at the central, State and Local Government levels and 8 Common Core and Support
Infrastructure. Saaransh provides a bird’s eye view on various mission mode
projects which was published in January 2011 which is available at https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Compendium_FINAL_Version_220211(1).pdf [7]
7.
Rashtriya Computer Literacy Drive
Started on 1st march 2001 by Sunita
Skills Pvt. Ltd., with an objective of bringing computer education to the grass
root level. It is a nationwide program to contribute to OPERATION KNOWLEDGE of
government of India. It has been started in states namely West Bengal,
Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram,
Nagaland.[8]
8.
National Digital Library (NDL)
Due to the changing information needs
by the users and also demand for the information particularly in digital format,
a national level digital library need was felt as these also help to bridge the
gap of time and space between the user and the information source. National Digital Library of India (NDLI) is a virtual
repository of learning resources which is not just a repository with
search/browse facilities but provides a host of services for the learner
community. It is sponsored and mentored by Ministry of Education, Government of
India, through its National Mission on Education through Information and
Communication Technology (NMEICT).
The Library was launched in pilot form in May 2016.
The Library was dedicated to the nation on June 19, 2018.[9]
9.
Public Information Kiosks (PIKs)
It is an action research project of
NIRD i.e. National Institute of Rural Development working as an information cum
communication center, with an objective of building awareness about rural
development programmes, database development on the resources of the local
area, Information and community services, empowering citizens with information.
10. Village Knowledge Centres (VKC)
The MSSRF i.e. M.S. Swaminathan
Research Foundation in 1998 started the Village Knowledge Centres project in
rural areas of Tamil Nadu as well as the UT of Pondicherry, to provide adequate
telecommunication infrastructure for proper dissemination of appropriate
information regarding the farming practices, education, health, weather, jobs,
loan related news or schemes, governmental schemes etc. the main focus was on
to reduce the digital divide as much as possible. The ultimate aim was to
develop a rural knowledge repository to connect approximately 638,000 villages
in India.[10]
11. Swift Jyoti
Working under the umbrella of NIIT
SWIFT programmes, SWIFT Jyoti mainly focus on the development of the computer
literacy among the target audience that is users from age 6 to 60 years old. It
is 18 hours program that covers some basic skills related to the computer
literacy namely word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and
pictures, online chatting, internet browsing, instant messaging, and E-mail.[11]
12. Gyandoot
The working area primarily being in the
poverty-stricken, tribal dominated rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, the goal of
the project is to establish community-owned, sustainable and technologically
innovative information kiosks. It maintains the financial profiles of the citizens
and offers services such as the BPL list. It provides online education with a user
interface in the local Hindi language.[12]
13. e-Choupla
It is the world’s largest rural
digital infrastructure, empowering 4 million farmers across 10 states. It is an
initiative of ITC’s agri-business initiative where farmers can access up to
date local as well as global information related to the areas of their
importance like weather conditions, latest farming practices, real-time market
prices etc. This web portal is available in various regional languages too.
Major categories in which the work is being done are as follows:
·
Providing
farmers with easy access to real-time, relevant information.
·
Raising
agri competencies through knowledge and technology transfer.
·
Bringing
appropriate farm and non-farm services close to farmer’s doorstep.
·
Expanding
choice and services for evolving rural customers[13]
14. Friends Model
FRIENDS stands for Fast Reliable
Instant Efficient Network for Disbursement of Services. These are the Jan Sewa
Kendras designed as a single-window facility where citizens can make government
related transactions with ease and comfort and without delay. The facility
became operational inn 14 districts of Kerala. Token management system is
adopted to eliminate queues and special help desks are also provided to guide
the public who are not well conversant with the payment procedures.[14]
15. The Akshaya Project
Kerala is the first State in India to
take initiative for the mass transformation of ICT by the implementation of
district wide e-literacy project ‘AKSHAYA’ in 2002, in Malappuram district of
Kerala, with an intention of ‘Empowering Kerala’. The venture paved the way for
the migration of Kerala to the first e-literate state. By bringing ICT to all
segments of people Akshaya acts as a vehicle for improved quality of life,
accessibility to information, transparency in governance and overall
socio-economic growth.[15]
Official website of the project is http://www.akshaya.kerala.gov.in/about
16. Bhoomi Project
When the computerization of land
records started by government of India in 1988-89, several states also showed
some interest in the scheme. Bhoomi project also falls under the same category
which was started by government of Karnataka in the year 1991 and got competed
in March 2002. Supported
with Central Government funding, resources from the Revenue Department of
Karnataka and software designed by the Bangalore-based National Informatics
Centre, the project’s data processing achievements are quite staggering. About
10,000 officials worked for 18 months for the computerization of 20 million
land records which belonged to 6.7 billion land owners in 27,000 villages
across Karnataka. All this was done to reduce the frauds done with the farmers
due to inaccessibility of the records to them.[16]
Available at https://landrecords.karnataka.gov.in/
17. Dristee
It includes 5 Indian states namely
Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar. This project provides
online buying and selling facilities to the citizens through its e commerce and
agri business services. It operates 500 kiosks in different states of India and
each kiosk is managed by a village entrepreneur. [17]
18. Information Literacy Programme in
Colleges The Hindu (e-newspaper)
This programme started in October
2006, with an aim to provide information literacy skills training to the
students of the rural area colleges so that they can compete with the urban
area college’s students by utilizing various information sources available in
the digital environments which are generally not being utilized by them. For
the above-stated purpose training is given to the students for IT tools, they
are introduced to the available electronic resources as well as various online
search programmes and methods to identify sources of information, like the subject
gateways, Online Public Access Catalogue, etc.
Conclusion:
Making the relevant information available to the user
community as well as making the user community well equipped with the
infrastructure and the intellectual is the need of the time if we want to make
progress in any field either at the individual level or at the state or the
national level. So, to fulfill this demand, several initiatives, and projects
has been started and supported by the government or any other organization working
in this field. Despite the above-mentioned projects, there are also other
projects like PURA i.e. Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas etc. all of
which are started with an ultimate goal to diminish the digital divide and the gap between the information-rich and poor by providing equal opportunities to
the users from all areas. Many of the projects proved to be the game changers
while some just not worked as they are supposed to be hence got concluded, but
the fact is that it is necessary to keep these kinds of projects going to help
the lesser-known groups of our country to get information literate and get
equally benefits from all the advancements being done in any field. Kerala got
a better pace when it comes to development and implications of these kinds of
projects and hence become the first state to achieve the tag of being
e-literate.
[1] "Framework
for Information Literacy for Higher Education", American Library
Association, February 9, 2015.
http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
(Accessed June 11, 2021)
Document ID: b910a6c4-6c8a-0d44-7dbc-a5dcbd509e3f
[3]
SSA on Education For all , available at http://www.educationforallinindia.com/ssa.htm
(Accessed on 24/06/2021)
[4] Banerjee,
S. (1993). Revisiting the National Literacy Mission. Economic and
Political Weekly, 28(25), 1274-1278. Retrieved June 24, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4399864
[5] Mane,
M. A. (2018). Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme. Aayushi International
Interdisciplinary Research
Journal (AIIRJ), v(xi), 70–71. http://www.aiirjournal.com/uploads/Articles/2018/11/3499_11.Minakshi%20Arun%20Mane.pdf
[6]
Janshala Programme available at http://suprativa.org/jp.htm
, (Accessed on 24/06/2021)
[7]
Saransh Compendium available at https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Compendium_FINAL_Version_220211(1).pdf
[8]
Rashtriya Computer Literacy Drive available at https://www.rcldgov.in/RCLD (Accessed on
27/06/2021)
[9]
National Digital Library available at https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/
(Accessed on 24/06/2021)
[10]
Subramanian, Ramesh and Arivanandan, Masilamani (2009) "Rural Development
through Village Knowledge Centers in India," Communications of the IIMA:
Vol. 9: Iss. 2, Article 9. Available at: http://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/ciima/vol9/iss2/9
[11]
NIIT SWIFT JYOTI available at http://www.niitstudent.com/indiaa/WNGY-Revised-Swift_p.htm
, (Accessed on 24/06/2021)
[12] Gorla,
N. (2009). A Survey of rural e-Government projects in India: Status and
benefits. Information Technology for Development, 15(1), 52–58.
https://doi.org/10.1002/itdj.20064
[13]
ITC e-Choupal available at https://www.itcportal.com/sustainability/echoupal-ecosystem.aspx
(Accessed on 24/06/2021)
[14]
Official web portal of Govt. of Kerala available at https://kerala.gov.in/friends
(Accessed on 01/07/2021)
[15] Pal,
J., Nedevschi, S., Patra, R. K., & Brewer, E. A. (2006). A
Multidisciplinary Approach to Open Access Village Telecenter Initiatives: The
Case of Akshaya. E-Learning and Digital Media, 3(3), 291-316. https://doi.org/10.2304/elea.2006.3.3.291
[16] Thomas,
P. (2009). Bhoomi, Gyan Ganga, e-governance and the right to information: ICTs
and development in India. Telematics and Informatics, 26(1), 20–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2007.12.004
[17] Gorla,
N. (2009). A Survey of rural e-Government projects in India: Status and
benefits. Information Technology for Development, 15(1), 52–58.
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