The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : e-strides by local bodies

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Tuesday, Feb 26, 2008
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e-strides by local bodies

Staff Reporter

14 more panchayats in Ernakulam district become e-literate

KOCHI: Thanks to Akshaya Mission, 14 more panchayats in Ernakulam district have entered the elite club of ‘full e-literacy.’ With this, the number of e-literate panchayats in the district comes to 19.

Besides, Paravur can now boast to be the first municipality in the district to achieve complete e-literacy. Aluva is the other municipality to have at least one e-literate member in every family.

Kalamassery municipality is expected to join the list by the end of this month, Akshya district coordinator K.K. Latheef said.

The district already had four fully e-literate panchayats — Chengamanad, Pothanikkad, Kunnathunadu and Kunnukara. Chengamanad was the first panchayat in the district to achieve this unique status.

Though Nedumbassery also had achieved complete e-literacy, it is yet to be formally declared.

The District Collector had, in his capacity as the chief coordinator of the Akshaya Project, issued the order declaring the 14 panchayats and the two municipalities as computer literate.

Now it is for the local bodies concerned to decide a date for making formal declarations, Akshaya sources said.

The 14 new entrants are Elanji, Kadungalloor, Kalloorkad, Rayamangalam, Manjalloor, Okkal, Eloor, Maradu, Kuzhupilly, Varapuzha, Amballoor, Puthenvelikara, Edathala and Sreemoolanagaram panchayats.

Arakkuzha and Ayavana panchayats have also achieved e-literacy and are awaiting the Collector’s order. “Being a municipal area, about 55 per cent of the households in Paravur already had at least one member with computer knowledge. Therefore, the five Akshaya centres allotted for the region needed to concentrate only on the rest of the households,” Shiny, block coordinator of the Akshaya project in Paravur said.

However, Sushama Vijayan, one of the four entrepreneurs in Aluva municipality, said she, armed with a laptop, took the e-literacy programme to every household irrespective of whether the family already had an e-literate member or not.

She was a bit disappointed that the much touted e-payment service launched at her centre as part of the second phase of the Akshaya Project had not evoked the expected response so far.

Meanwhile, the Akshaya Mission has set a deadline (March 31) for completing e-literacy programme.

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