Is BJP Promising The Moon? Broadband In Villages And Social Media For Grievance Redressal, Far Possibilities!

By M H Ahssan | INNLIVE

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.

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.

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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.
• 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?

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.