With the stage set for the final phase of polling for the Lok Sabha elections, one of the key battles will be for the Patna Sahib seat in Bihar where senior BJP leader and Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is taking on rebel-turned Congress candidate Bihari babu Shatrughan Sinha.
But in the mid of the frensied elections what has gone unnoticed is how voters in the State’s Digital Villages, part of the Modi Government’s e-governance mega initiative, have chosen to vote.
After all, it is Prasad, the Union Minister from Bihar, who spearheads the digital movement at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In Patna region alone, as many as 30 Common Service Centre (CSC), a special purpose vehicle (SPV), to provide basic electronic services such as banking to villagers have been set up.
Overall, in Bihar, there are a total of 80 such Digi Villages. Even the remotest one like Fathua, Bakhtiyarpur, has now been rechristened like Digi Gaon Fathua.
Then there are villages like Kahra (Saharsa), one of the most backward villages of the country, Andalee in Supaul, Kolhar, Gauripanda and Daniawan in and around Patna while those in the remotes areas are Jamuniya, Misrauliya and Machragawa in Saran to name a few. They are all part of the 2.5 lakh villages across the country where Prasad’s Ministry has been mandated to set up basic facilities.
“For the last couple of years, villagers have been availing of all services of government like banks, pensions and other financial services, passport submission, education enquiries and many more right at their village door steps, thereby saving the villagers from travelling to main district headquarters or townships,” locals pointed out.
They said smaller villages have more of hutments but they have been taking pride in naming their village with the prefix Digi. But will such development initiatives trump the caste factors at play in Bihar? Residents from a cross-section of villages came up with mixed reactions but the common underlining outcome was that caste arithmetic goes hand-in-hand with developmental agenda.
The Digital Villages have been equipped with solar lighting facility in their community centre, energy efficient LED assembly unit, sanitary napkin unit with active participation on Asha and Anganwadi workers and Wi-fi Choupal, officials pointed out adding these villages would also have the regular CSC services like Aadhaar, banking, telemedicine, education, financial services etc.
“This is a very significant step in transformation of core area of governance and give the rural India a comfortable life by the use of technology for overall community empowerment,” said Dr Dinesh Kumar Tyagi, CEO of CSC.
While an investment of about Rs 10 lakh is required for turning one village into a digital one, the Centre is likely to spend Rs 10,000 crore in setting up one lakh digital villages across the country in the next five years. CSC will set up 20,000 digital villages every year in the next five years.
