DIT-HRD Ministry Tussle Brings Vidya Vahini Project To A Halt

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New Delhi: : The Rs 6,000 crore Vidya Vahini project — inaugurated by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in June 2003 — to take computer education to 60,000 primary schools across the country, has been stopped in its tracks. Government sources said confusion over ownership of the project between the department of information technology (DIT) and ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has made it a non-starter.

The project was conceived by the ministry of information technology (now known as DIT) in 2002 and a pilot was done in seven VIP constituencies. The pilot was completed in June 2003 and full-fledged implementation was initiated by the Prime Minister on June 10 via video conferencing.

Meanwhile, MHRD had expressed its interest to execute the project claiming that it involved taking computer education to primary government schools across the country.

A highly placed senior DIT official close to the project said that the department is not pursuing the project as it is now supposed to be driven by the MHRD. However, when asked by eFE about the progress on the Vidya Vahini project, MHRD deputy secretary Vivek Bhardwaj said, “You should ask them (DIT).” MHRD had written a letter asking them to hand over the project but had not received any reply so far, he claimed.

The Vidya Vahini project is one of the few high-visibility national level projects being executed by the government. It aims to take computer education to 60,000 schools across the country in a matter of three years. Under the project, each of the schools would be provided with a computer lab. The computer lab will also be equipped with Internet, Intranet and television to facilitate video-conferencing, Web-broadcasting and e-learning.