The Department of Telecom (DoT) is soon going to bring out a report that will make it necessary for mobile phones to support Hindi along with at least one regional language. This is to enable people to interact with each other in local language as well as for accessing government services like e-payment via mobile phones.
As per a senior official at DoT, “Three months down the line, there will be a regulation that will make every mobile phone sold in India mandatory to have English, Hindi and one regional language”. The official also pointed out that in order to make Digital India a success the broadband must not be merely restricted to English-speaking middle and upper class Indians and it should flow down to rural areas as well.
At present, there are several mobile phone present in the market that are supporting regional languages. Apart from this, there is a government run programme called, ‘Digital Saksharta Abhiyan’ (DISHA) which is for imparting IT training for digital literacy.
DISHA also is also aiming at making a person IT literate so that they can operate digital devices like mobile phones, tablets and the like and send and receive emails and search the Internet for information. The scheme will also allow citizens to be trained for efficiently gaining access to several e-governance services that are being offered by government as well as other agencies.
