Having poor access to the internet across states, the government needs to look at all possibilities and narrow the digital divide. Explain (200 Words)
Refer - The Hindu
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 4 years
KEY POINTS
· The full report of the NSO’s survey of ‘Household Social Consumption on Education in India’, for July 2017-June 2018, highlights the poor state of computer and Internet access in several States.
· The disparities are glaring among different economic strata as well. The digital chasm that separates the privileged from the deprived remains unbridged years after the broadband policy of 2004, and its effects are painfully evident during the pandemic as students struggle to log on to online classes.
· Only in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala did the survey find Internet access exceeding 50% for urban and rural households taken together, while Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand exceeded 40%, unimpressive numbers still.
· Prime Minister has acknowledged the digital divide by announcing in his Independence Day address that all villages would be connected with optical fibre cable in 1,000 days.
· This target, reflecting enhanced ambition, follows the one set in 2011 to link panchayats through a national optical fibre network — to raise administrative capacities through information infrastructure.
· Mapping the needs of each district based on the NSO data will help identify areas where children do need equipment and connectivity.
· Some companies in India have made the valuable suggestion that their used desktop computers could be refurbished and donated, for which governments need to open a programme.
· On the network technology front, a new gigabit speed ‘wireless fibre’ standard is being viewed in developed countries as a leapfrog option to link inaccessible areas. The government needs to look at all possibilities and go into overdrive to bridge the digital divide.
