New Delhi: Rajasthan is going digital and being all-inclusive. The recently held DigiFest in Udaipur paved the way for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Now, in an attempt to not exclude the population who is not comfortable reading or writing in English, Rajasthan now offers Hindi email Ids.
It has become the first state in the country to launch free email addresses in Hindi for its residents, state IT department Principal Secretary Akhil Arora has said.
It is believed that, the initiative will ensure maximum participation of people towards e-governance and also that maximum facilities are available in vernacular language, the report said.
These emails will follow the format of This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (in Devanagari script) and can be accessed by people who use the Latin or Devanagari keyboard.
The facility —This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (in Devanagari script) — will lead to millions of new users who are not comfortable with English e-mail ids, officials said.
The first e-mail id that was created was that of the chief minister, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (in Devnagari). All the government personnel in the state will soon have an email id in Hindi too.
“During Digifest Kota in August 2017, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje had shown the intent to have a vernacular e-mail service for the residents who are not fluent in English as she felt that language should not be a hindrance for anybody using emails or electronic communication. Hence, the vernacular e-mail, in Hindi, was launched on 3 December. Rajasthan is the first, and currently the only state, to have a vernacular e-mail,” principal secretary, department of information technology and communications, Akhil Arora, told a publication.
The project has been implemented by the state IT department with partnership in form of in-sourcing with private IT companies. A dedicated team of 10 experts from the state IT department worked for three months on the project. Apart from people who use Hindi keyboard, the email also works for those who use English keyboard, as per the officials.
According to the 2011 census, the literacy rate in Rajasthan is 66.11% and Marwari is the most widely-spoken language in Rajasthan which is written in the Devanagari script. Therefore, having an email address in Hindi will not only encourage more people to get online but will also allow them to access websites that felt beyond their reach.
In December 2016, state-run BSNL had launched e-mail address service in eight Indian languages for its broadband users by launching a ‘DataMail’ service.
However, unlike BSNL, the Hindi email offered by Rajasthan government is for all the Internet users.
As per TRAI, total Internet subscribers in India are just about 30 per cent of the country’s population. So, about 70 percent of population is not having access to the Internet and most of these belong to rural India.
As per official data compiled in 2016, Hindi is spoken by 544 million people in India making it the most spoken language.
References:
https://www.thequint.com
http://www.hindustantimes.com
http://cmapp.rajasthan.gov.in
http://currentaffairs.freejobalert.com
https://www.thebetterindia.com