Kerala achieved the distinction of being the first digital state in the country on Saturday having linked all villages in the state with broadband connectivity under the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project. President Pranab Mukherjee formally declared Kerala as the first digital state by launching a digital empowerment campaign in Kozhikode aimed at bridging the digital divide by 2020. The campaign for e-literacy will use 40,000 student police cadets to train 10 lakh people in panchayats and remote areas.

Kerala is the first state to complete the NOFN project—initiated in 2011—in the country. Idukki in Kerala achieved the unique distinction in January 2015 of being the first district in India to be fully connected by high-speed broadband connectivity. NOFN uses Gigabit Passive Optical Network technology to enable a single optical fibre to serve multiple premises. Government sources said with such high-speed broadband networks, people will be able to see videos on Internet as clearly as on TV and make video calls too, among other things. The broadband network connecting all panchayats in India forms the core of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious ‘Digital India’ project.

“Kerala is also a pioneer in e-literacy having launched two breakthrough projects as early as 2002. The Akshaya Project was launched with the objective of making at least one person in every family e-literate. The IT@school project aimed at providing basic computer knowledge to every high school student,” Mukherjee said.

The President said it is heartening to note that Kerala has now over 600 e-governance applications covering almost all departments, delivering e-services to citizens. They are also being made available on the mobile platform now. He added that Kerala has emerged as a truly ‘digital state’ with a mobile tele-density of 95% and Internet access covering over 60 % of the population.

“I am happy to know that the Kerala government has initiated a digital literacy campaign leveraging its strong digital infrastructure. This initiative aims at the digital empowerment of citizens from all walks of life. It will enable ordinary citizens to effectively use the Internet to avail government and private services in a secure manner. Once extended to the entire state, the campaign will cover about three million citizens in the age group of 30-60 years. With this path-breaking initiative, Kerala is on track towards becoming a fully digital society by 2020,” the President said.

The department of telecom (DOT) is set to complete NOFN rollout to 2.5 lakh villages and panchayats in India by March 2016. Three public-sector units, BSNL, RailTel and Power Grid, are tasked with the rollout work. The project is now part of the government’s Digital India programme to transform the country into a digitally-empowered knowledge economy. About 700,000 km of optical fibre is to be laid across the country for the ambitious project and the total cost for this programme, initially estimated at R20,000 crore, has been increased to R30,000 crore.