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Guidelines – for Scheme for Empowering women in Rural

India through Digital Literacy

1 Introduction

1.1 Under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) formulated by the Department of Information Technology, Government of India, over 90,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) have been established. Today these CSCs are delivering a wide variety of services to the citizens. While the rural population is slowly joining this revolution, women and girls remain generally marginalized and excluded from taking advantage of ICT knowledge and services.

1.2 CSCs can be an effective vehicle to help women acquire digital literacy skills that enable them to further their education, gain employment, help start and build their own businesses, secure their livelihoods and become socially and politically active.

1.3 In view of this it is proposed to provide IT literacy to women through the CSC network and provide financial support both to these women who undergo training and the VLEs that will be providing this training.

1.4 Thus the Scheme to provide IT literacy training to women combines the reach of the CSC with the objective of empowering rural women.

2 Scheme details

2.1 The Scheme for empowering women in Rural India through Digital Literacy envisages training of 25,000 women on the Course of Computer Concepts designed and administered by DOEACC. DOEACC is a society of the Department of Information Technology, Government of India and is responsible for both training and certifying IT manpower. The well known certifications like O level and A Level for IT professionals are awarded by DOEACC. DOEACC is the implementing agency of the Scheme.

2.2 The Program Management of the Scheme will be carried out by the M/s CSC e-Governance Services Pvt. Ltd hereinafter referred to as CSC SPV, which is a corporate entity created with the equity participation of State Governments, Service Centre Agencies and Financial Institutions. Government of India has one golden share.

2.3 The Scheme will be operated in the States of 1) Assam, 2) Bihar, 3) Jammu and Kashmir, 4) Madhya Pradesh 5) Maharashtra, 6) Rajasthan, 7) Sikkim , 8) Tamil Nadu, 9) Uttar Pradesh and 10) West Bengal. About 2500 women will be trained in each of the 10 States.

2.4 The training to the women beneficiaries will be imparted by the VLE in the CSC. The Department of Information Technology, Government of India, has previously approved a scheme under which the DOEACC Society will train and certify one Lakh Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLE) of the CSCs on DOEACC’s “Course on Computer Concepts” (CCC), which the VLEs should utilize to secure the CCC certification.

3 Course on Computer Concepts (CCC)

3.1 The Computer Concepts (CCC) course of DOEACC provides an introduction to computers. The course will cover the following topics.

a. Introduction to Computer

b. Introduction to GUI based Operating System

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c. Elements of Word Processing

d. Spreadsheets

e. Computer Communication and Internet

f. WWW and Web Browsers

g. Communication and Collaboration

h. Making small Presentations

3.2 The above course is of 80 hours duration

3.3 The Course on Computer Concepts is available in English as well as in the following Indian languages Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Urdu

4 Benefits of undergoing CCC certification

4.1 After completing the 80 hour course, which will be delivered at the CSC, the participant will be able to use the computer for the following activities:

a) Prepare personal/business documents

b) Manage spreadsheets

c) Create presentations

d) Browse the Internet

e) Communicate via email

4.2 Certification on the CCC course of DOEACC is also likely to benefit the trainees in the form of better employment prospects include some Government jobs for which CCC certification is a requirement . Further Government of India is undertaking many e-Governance programs in Rural India which should create many employment opportunities for women with CCC certification.

5 Incentives to Beneficiaries

5.1 The Scheme entails payment of Rs. 360/- to the beneficiary, Rs. 360/- to the VLE and Rs. 360/- to DOEACC towards examination fees. Funds earmarked for VLE and beneficiary along with the Project Management Fees for CSC SPV will be released to CSC SPV by DOEACC on demand for the same by the SPV.

5.2 The beneficiary would receive an incentive of Rs. 360 only on successfully securing the CCC certification of DOEACC. In addition to the incentive, the examination fee for the CCC examination of DOEACC amounting to Rs. 360 is waived for the beneficiaries as the said examination fee is being directly paid by Department of Information Technology, Government of India to DOEACC.

5.3 The VLE would obtain Rs. 360 towards training the beneficiary subject to the beneficiary clearing the CCC examination and obtaining the CCC certification.

5.4 Subject to the trainee successfully obtaining the CCC certificate, the VLE should submit the request for incentive for both themselves and the beneficiary enclosing the DOEACC CCC certificate for each trainee to the SCA. The SCA in turn should consolidate all requests, and submit these requests to the CSC SPV at the following address

Scheme for Women’s Literacy M/s CSC e-Governance Services Pvt. Ltd. NeGD PMU 4th Floor Electronics Niketan

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Gate No. 6 CGO Complex, Lodhi Road New Delhi 110006 Telephone no. 011 32928611

E Mail : digital.literacy@cscegovindia.com

5.5 The CSC e-Governance Services Pvt. Ltd in turn would consolidate requests examine and transfer the necessary funds to the concerned VLE and the beneficiary electronically .

6 Selection of VLEs to administer the training

6.1 The SDA of the States covered under the program should 2-3 districts where the scheme is to be implemented. About 25- 50 VLEs will need to be selected in these districts by the SDA based on parameters like performance of the VLE on OMT etc. for imparting training to women. Based on the number of VLEs selected by the State, the number of the women to be trained by the VLE would be determined. For e.g. if the State selects 40 VLEs to impart training, given that the total number of women available to be trained under the program is limited to 2500 per state, the number of trainees per VLE would be limited to 63 only.

6.2 To enable better monitoring of the Scheme it is proposed that VLEs should be selected in a cluster of 2-3 neighbouring districts of the State.

6.3 The SDA should send the consolidated list of the selected VLEs to the CSC SPV by 27th April 2011 as per format in Appendix 1.

6.4 As mentioned previously, the VLEs selected for imparting training should have obtained CCC certification from DOEACC. Further the CSC of the VLE should be equipped with internet connectivity and should be registered on the Online Monitoring Tool.

6.5 In case the VLE does not have CCC certification, he should fulfil the following eligibility criteria

a) Should be a graduate

b) Should have undertaken a 6 month Diploma course on computers.

c) Should obtain DOEACC CCC certification within the next 6 months for which the VLE can utilize the scheme formalized by DIT to provide DOEACC training on CCC to VLEs.

7 Selection of beneficiaries – Women Trainees

7.1 The VLE will select the women to be trained under the Scheme in consultation with the Gram Panchayat where the CSC is located. The beneficiaries may be from the Panchayat or any of the adjoining Gram Panchayats. The VLE will communicate the list of beneficiaries along with their bank accounts in the specified format in Appendix 2. However he should send details of the trainees to the District Magistrate / Collector and the State Designated Agency. Any dispute regarding selection of beneficiaries will be resolved by the District Magistrate / Collector of the district.

8 Training of Women

The VLE can train the trainees in two modes.

a. Train the women on the E-learning module of CCC course at the DOEACC site http://elearn.doeacc.edu.in/

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b. Downloading the material from the DOEACC site http://www.doeacc.edu.in and train the women on this material.

The training of the women will be monitored through an online attendance module, created and managed by the CSC SPV.

9 Certification

9.1 Women who have completed the training on CCC course at the CSC need to submit the Examination Application form through their VLE and SCA to the DOEACC centre responsible for their state. The state wise contact details of DOEACC offices is available in Annexure A.

9.2 The examination is of 90 minutes duration and comprises of objective type questions of 100 marks and certificate is awarded to those candidates who score a minimum of 50 marks.

9.3 DOEACC will allot an examination centre for the certification exam. It is anticipated that these examination centres will be located close to the village. At most the trainee will need to travel to the District Headquarters for the CCC certification examination.

9.4 The CCC examination is held 3 times a year in February, June and October and women desirous of applying for certification should submit their applications about 60 days prior to the examination schedule.

10 Payment and Fees for Beneficiaries

10.1 The examination fee for the CCC certification is Rs. 360/- however through funding by DIT, examination fees have been waived for beneficiaries of this scheme.

11 Roles of the Key Stakeholders

11.1 The key enablers for imparting the digital literacy course are the State Governments, who through the State Designated Agencies (SDAs) will seek to strengthen the financial viability and credibility of this Scheme by successfully implementing the Scheme through the SCAs. They are requested to forward a list of the districts where the scheme is proposed to be implemented and the VLEs that would impart the training to DIT. The SDA is also requested to coordinate with the District Administration of the Districts selected to ensure smooth implementation of the scheme. The SDA will provide details of the VLE in the enclosed format.

11.2 DOEACC is the implementing agency of Scheme.

11.3 The CSC SPV is the project management and monitoring agency of the Scheme.

11.4 The Roles of key stakeholders are highlighted below:

1) The DOEACC Society is the implementing agency under this Scheme and is responsible for:

a) Training and certifying VLEs to impart the CCC course to women in rural India via the CSCS

b) Testing and certifying women who have undergone the CCC course training at CSCs

c) Maintaining a record of all participants who appear for the CCC online examination as well as of all those who pass and receive the CCC Certification

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d) Releasing funds in a consolidated manner to CSC e-governance Services for the CSC e-governance Services to release it to the beneficiaries.

e) Making payment to the CSC e-governance Services for the Project Management Fee component.

f) Providing regular progress reports of the scheme, namely training and certification of beneficiaries as per the format in Appendix 3

2) The CSC SPV will be responsible for the Scheme’s program management, including:

a) Coordinating with the SCAs, various stakeholders to ensure the successful Scheme implementation

b) Ensuring the timely implementation of the Scheme

c) Compiling the list of beneficiaries state wise and ensure reelase of funds to VLEs and beneficiaries in a time bound manner.

d) Distributing the VLE and beneficiary incentives to SCAs for onward transfer to VLE and the beneficiary.

e) Building awareness of the Scheme, including developing and implementing the marketing plan and media strategy

f) Cross pollination of best practices among States and VLEs

g) Monitoring project progress and undertaking impact assessment

h) Recommending next steps for nationwide implementation of the Scheme

i) Creating a monitoring mechanism for the Scheme

3) The SCAs will be responsible for:

a) Propose the districts to be selected for the Scheme to the SDA

b) Suggest the VLEs that would provide training to the women beneficiaries and forward the names to the SDA.

c) Coordinating with the local DOEACC centers to ensure that the VLEs get trained and certified to impart CCC course training via the CSCs

d) The local implementation of the Scheme in each selected district to ensure selection of women beneficiaries and that the training is being imparted regularly and in a quality manner to the women.

e) Consolidating the requests for VLE and beneficiary incentives and passing them on to the CSC e-Governance services Ltd.

f) Making payments to VLEs and beneficiaries after obtaining the said incentive from the CSC e-Governance Services Pvt. Ltd.

g) Supporting the VLEs in Scheme awareness building, beneficiary selection and training activities.

h) Reporting to the CSC SPV on the progress of the project

4) The Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLE) will be responsible for:

a) Getting trained and certified by DOEACC. For this they may utilize the scheme initiated by DIT for obtaining training and certification on CCC of DOEACC.

b) Imparting the 80 hour CCC computer training course to women eligible under the Scheme

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c) Selecting the women participants eligible under the Scheme.

d) Keeping a record of all participants that enrol in the course and ensuring that they appear for the CCC certification exam.

12 Monitoring of Scheme

12.1 The CSC SPV will create an online monitoring mechanism to track the project implementation, including VLE selection, participant enrolment, participant course attendance, participant certification status, etc.

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Appendix 1

Name of the State

S No

Name of VLE

CSC ID

Village Name

Block Name

Gram Panchayat

District

State No. of Beneficiaries

SCA Affiliated

Bank details for Village Level Entrepreneur Bank A/c Number

Name of Bank

Branch

IFSC Code

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Appendix 2

APPLICATION FORM @

Date : ……………………………

1) Beneficiary Details

a. Name of Beneficiary - ...…… ………………………………

b. Date of Birth - …….………………………………….

c. Education qualifications - .………………………………………..

d. Village - ….………………………………………

e. Gram Panchayat - …...……………………………………..

f. Block - ….…………………………………......

g. Bank Details (of Beneficiary) :

i. Account Number - ……………………………………………..

ii. Name of Bank - ……………………………………………..

iii. Branch - ……………………………………………..

iv. IFSC Code - ……………………………………………….

2) Name of VLE - ..……………………………………….

3) Affiliated CSC ID - ….……………………………………..

4) Address of VLE

a. Village - ….………………………………………

b. Gram Panchayat - …...……………………………………..

c. Block - ….…………………………………......

d. District - ….……………………………………….

e. State - ….……………………………………….

Signature of Beneficiary Signature of VLE

@ Note State Designated Agency is advised to translate the form in the local language

Photograph of Beneficiary

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Appendix 3

DOEACC Reporting Formats

Month

S.NO Name of the DOEACC Centre

No. of Beneficiaries Enrolled

No. of Beneficiaries Trained

No. of Certificates Awarded