Basar village honoured as Telangana First ‘Digital Village’

Telangana Information Technology Association (TITA) in association with IIIT- Basar has successfully completed the mission of digitalizing the Basar village in Mudhol Mandal, Adilabad District. Basar, located about 200 kms from Hyderabad on the banks of river Godavari, is very famous for its Saraswathi Temple. Saraswathi is a goddess of knowledge and learning, it is believed that children’s who are brought here to perform a learning ceremony called Akshara Bhasyam will excel in knowledge and wisdom.

"This unique initiative of digitalizing the entire village of Basar has been first adopted by TITA and IIIT - Basar on 17th Dec 2015, under the banner of 'Digithon'. The aim of this mission is to teach at least one person in every house hold and make the Basar village as first 100% Digital Literate Village in Telangana State. TITA has adopted “Train-the-trainers” model to accomplish this mission and has trained and certified 658 IIIT Digithon Certified Trainers called Digital leaders.

In this, 200 Digital Leaders were selected for Digital Basar project. These digital leaders conducted household survey in the entire village, which has 2100 households and identified 475 Digital illiterate households. Sessions were conducted across 7 Sundays starting from 3rd Jan 2016 till 14th Feb 2016 to literate the village. This mission has been successfully completed by imparting training and certifying these 475 digital illiterates, thus bestowing Basar village a remarkable achievement of “First Digital Literate Village" n Telangana State. To further enhance the digital skills of students, TITA corporate team members Venkat Vanam, Manoj Tatikonda and Praveen Ghunwar have donated two computer systems, each to Government Boys High School & Government Girls High School in Basar village." said TITA Founder & President Sundeep Kumar Makthala.

IT Secretary of Telangana state, Mr. Jayesh Ranjan has officially declared Basar as first digital village and said "This is a Historic Day for Telangana & Congratulations to Basar Villagers to be part of the history. Basar is now first Digital Village in Telangana State”. He has appreciated TITA and IIIT collaborative efforts in achieving this remarkable landmark and requested IT professionals and NRI’s to participate in these initiatives and urged them to adopt a village and transform them in to digital villages. Jayesh Ranjan on behalf of Telangana Government has donated 4 Computers to Basar Panchayat office which will be used by the learners every day. Basar Sarpanch Sailaja Satish said “Thanks to TITA for opting Basar Village for Digithon Digital Literacy initiative and this helped us to achieve 100% digital literacy”.

“Digital Basara is a unique Digital Literacy model in the country where TITA, IIIT Basara Digital Leaders trained the Basara Villagers on Digital Literacy program under guidance of NDLM for 7 weeks and as a result the villagers are now digitally literates and they know how to communicate using Internet and also ready to avail online services like Meeseva Services, Bus Ticket, Train Ticket booking and also can connect with government by email. If other Institutions can also come forward, this model can empower many more citizens in rural areas on Digital Literacy. Every Educational institution should think in these lines and we may call it 'College Social Responsibility'.” said Raja Kishore, Vice President - Common Services Centres (CSC) SPV.

Following the same suite, TITA has now partnered with Telangana University to adopt Narsingapuram village in Nizamabad District, which has 275 households. Mr. Jayesh Ranjan, while officially inaugurating this initiative said "This is a great privilege for us to be part of digital literacy programs and applauded TITA for setting out a great example towards greater participation of society in social initiatives”.

This remarkable event was attended by Telangana IT Secretary Mr. Jayesh Ranjan IAS, IIIT VC Sathyanarayana, TITA Founder & President Mr. Sundeep Kumar Makthala, CSC Vice President Mr. Raja Kishore, TITA Vice President Ranapratap Bojjam, Naveen Gaddam, Basar Sarpanch Sailaja Satish, Ashwin Chandra, Srinivas Goud, Venkat Vanam, Praveen, Ravi Lella, Kiran Jetty, Vishwak, Ravinder Ryada .