Broadband in villages and Wi-Fi in public places: Is BJP promising the moon?

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is gearing up to form the next government at the Centre, seems to be banking on technology to address the much-discussed mis-governance that has been blamed for the country’s slow growth in the last few years.

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The party, which is considered technologically savvier than the rival Congress, has, in its manifesto, said that “IT is a great enabler for empowerment, equity and efficiency”. It has also claimed credit for making India the IT capital of the world goes to the NDA government of 1999-2004.

It has listed out more than a dozen promises to make every nook and corner of the country technologically empowered.

The steps promised include:

• •Deployment of broadband in every village. This, it says, would be a thrust area.• e-Governance through social media. This is aimed at boosting participative governance and effective public grievance redressal mechanism. The manifesto says its aim is to minimise the discretion in the citizen-government interface.• Telemedicine and mobile healthcare for rural healthcare delivery.

  • To bring SC/ST, OBCs and other weaker sections of the society under the ambit of IT enabled development.

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  • Promote ‘open source’ and ‘open standard’ software.

  • IT to protect India’s priceless cultural and artistic heritage. This includes digitization of all archives and museology.

  •To technology enabled products affordable for students.Make all institutions and schools eenabled in a phased manner. Digital learning and training to be used extensively

  • initiate a National e-Governance Plan to cover every Government office from the centre to the panchayats. The ‘E-Gram, Vishwa Gram’ scheme in Gujarat to be implemented nationwide.

  • mandate digitization of all government work to reduce corruption and delays.

  • Launch a national programme for digital empowerment through computer literacy of the people, especially the youth.

  • Wi-Fi facilities will be made available in public places and commercial centres.

  • BJP plans to set up a National Optical-Fibre Network up to the village level; and Wi-Fi zones in public areas.

  The party, for sure, is striking the right chord on technology though it doesn’t escape the nagging doubt: Isn’t the party promising the moon by proposing to make every household digitally literate?

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But then manifestos are all about promising the moon to the voters. Even the Congress, after mis-governing the country for the last five years, has made big promises in its manifesto.