Kerala Digital Literacy Journey

Kerala has by this fact reached a major milestone by becoming the first completely digitally literate state in India.The first stage of the Digi Kerala project is successfully completed, which is a significant step on the way to the digital divide reduction and acquisition of the digital skills so necessary to empower the citizens.

Key Achievements:

• Large scale surveys were carried out covering 1.5 crore of people in 83.46 lakh families.
• The number of identifications of digitally illiterate people was 2.18 lakhs and 99.98 per cent passed the training and the evaluations.
• Inclusion was also forefront as youth and senior citizens were taken into the approach as well as 104-year-old M.A. Abdullah Moulavi Baqavi.

Grassroots Implementation:

Training was provided by the local bodies via the decentralized model of governance, which is available in Kerala. This way, there was accessibility and a strong community involvement with no group being left behind.

Socio-economic Impact:

Digital literacy empowers citizens to access e-governance services (e.g. Ayushman Bharat, PM-Kisan and Jan Dhan) and use them as self-administrative. This eases the use of intermediaries and encourages financial inclusion of the marginalized groups and the women.

Strengthening Democracy:

Digitally enabled, citizens are now better able to interact with government portals, lodge complaints, make RTI applications, and contribute in other online civic engagement. This creates openness, accountability and more participatory governance.

Broader Implications:

The model adopted by Kerala focuses on grass roots training rather than just nurturing an infrastructure, which fits perfectly in the agenda of the Digital India mission. It provides an emulatable model that could be used by other states so that the digital instruments become available and intelligently applied by everyone.

Enhanced Resilience:

By increasing the level of digital literacy among its citizens, a state will improve its readiness to react to crises like pandemics or a natural disaster, as uninterrupted access to online services and e-learning systems will be guaranteed.

The success story of Kerala is evidence of the transformative potential of digital literacy in facilitating equitable growth, social-economic empowerment and resilient governance.