India Votes 2009 - Summary of BJP’s IT Vision Document –Benefitting Rural India

1. Will generate 1.20 Crore new IT-enabled jobs in rural areas. This will be achieved by way of at least 20 jobs in each of the aprox 600000 villages in the country. A series of initiatives have been devised to make this a realty.

2. Raise farm productivity, bring cost of cultivation down and increase Kisans’ income using IT for water conservation, soil enrichment, procurement, marketing, credit needs of Kisans, waste elimination and taking R&D from ‘lab to land’.

3. Internet in every town and village – with unlimited upload and download data transfer limits

4. Every BPL (Below Poverty Line) family to be given free smart mobile phone – Free of cost.

5. 100% financial inclusion through Bank accounts, with eBanking facilities for all Indian Citizens. Direct transfer of welfare funds.

6. Providing highest standard Medical Services under eHealthcare initiative – using video conferencing facilities, without the need to travel to Big cities for medical treatment. This is known as Telemedicine. The BJP led government will use IT to provide best medical services to Rural India.

7. Land and property records to be computerized to reduce the number of disputes / litigation due to non-clarity of land records in rural areas.

8. Panchayats will be able to communicate between themselves, free of cost!

9. Purchase of Railway and Bus tickets from the Internet in their own villages!

10. All courts to be computerized for faster decision on cases and clearing of back log..

11. All Citizen to have free call facility to call their areas M.P.. This will be a 24 Hours facility. This will be helpful in their discussing the problems with their elected representative.

12. Under eGovernance for Good Governance – Making available government services online and in local languages in every village & town.

13. Implementing ‘E Gram Vishwa Gram’ : Gujrat’s pioneering project that BJP ledges to implement nationwide – This project aims at providing broadband connectivity to all gram panchayats. Video conferencing facilities at all the villages. Gram Panchayat to issue citizen related documents and certificates, application forms including 7 / 12 certificates to farmers from Panchayats.

14. The use of IT will help in better communication from Rural areas to City Government, State Government and even the centre government. This will reduce corruption ,since all transactions between government and citizens will be computerized.

15. Under eDevelopment for all – To provide Information required by Farmers (About markets, inputs, farm operations, government schemes etc) to be provided through digital platforms – at Panchayat level only.

16. National skill development mission to increase the number of skilled workers from 8% currently to 20% in five years of BJP led NDA rule. Climate change also to be addressed with green technologies.

17. A great initiative planned by BJP led NDA government – eBhasha – National Mission for promotion of IT in Indian Languages – All softwares sold in India would have to be compatible with all 22 official languages. This will go a long way in e-enabling our rural India and ensure deeper penetration of IT / Internet which will help in much faster development of the Rural India