Govt’s Digital Awareness Drive Fails to Impress IITs, IIMs

Even though the promotion of government’s Digital India campaign have been highly appreciated and even though around one lakh college students have registered as volunteers for the awareness drive on digital transactions, the response from the top institutes like IITs, IIMs, NITs and other central universities has been utterly poor.

None of the IITs, IIMs and other universities including University of Hyderabad, IIM-Ahmedabad and the Banaras Hindu University has extended a volunteering hand to HRD Ministry’s Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (VISAKA). Only 11 students have registered themselves from IIM Bangalore. Approximately 75 students from the Delhi University and 24 students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have enrolled themselves in this initiative. 23 students have registered from IIT Madras and four from IIT Bombay have taken the step forward. While 211 students enrolled from the Central University of South Bihar, Central University of Punjab had 201 volunteers.

However, some colleges have performed well in terms of enrolling themselves. It includes 1600 volunteers from Jamshedpur Women’s College, National College, Trichy with over 1200 volunteers and finally 500 volunteers from Lovely Professional University.

Although, with the onset of demonetization by the government, this exercising of promoting digital transactions in colleges and universities is a great practice. Training of the students has started in various colleges and they are being taught how to open a bank account, link Aadhar card with the account and other required information for digital literacy.

In a way, converting cash transactions into cashless transactions will help solve many problems specifically for students, especially considering demonetization in the current scenario. It will now depend on colleges and universities to follow, learn and take a step forward with such development in the country.