Sri Surekar Lakshman is a farmer in Elegaon village in Nirmal District. He has 510 sheep and used to buy feed and medicines every month at veterinary shops and needed hard cash.

There is non-availability of hard cash in ATMs and he used to suffer a lot.

One day he heard about BHIM Application and then immediately he went to CSC VLE Mr.Vinayak and asked him to how to use BHIM App. VLE Mr.Vinayak registered him under PMGDISHA and trained him.

Now Mr.Laxamn is using BHIM App and making his regular payment with BHIM. Collector Smt. M. Prashanti, IAS, gave PMGDisha certificate to him during a District-Level meeting and officials asked him being second class dropout in school how he could do this. He demonstrated how BHIM app works on his mobile and showed the functionality. All officials were surprised seeing his skills and appreciated him. Surekar Lakshman is now a Digital Farmer and he thanked PMGDisha program. This is how technology and PMGDisha helps common man to make their life simpler.

Union Minister Smriti Irani announces Pindara Thakur village as “DigiGaon”

Union Textilies Minister, Ms.Smriti Irani inaugurated on Saturday (01.09.2018) “the DigiGaon” initiative at a Village in Amethi District as part of efforts to provide people access to Government Services. During the inauguration of “DigiGaon” in Amethi( U.P), she said that the CSC movement had transformed into a movement of change bringing services like banking, pensions, digital literacy and telemedicine to rural and remote villages through electronic infrastructure.

Also present during the launch ceremony were Dr.DineshTyagi (CEO-CSC-SPV), District Magistrate of Amethi, Ms.Shakuntala Gautam and Hon’ble State Minister Sh.Suresh Passi. Mr Passi ,said that the CSC project is providing sustainable digital access to rural communities and are giving the necessary impetus for upliftment of the rural community.

Under the DigiGaon Village initiative, Hon’ble Minister Ms.Smriti Irani also inaugurated a Common Service Center(CSC), that would provide digital access to 100 + Government Services, at Pindara Thakur Village in Musafirkhana block in Amethi. She also mentioned that in order to serve the ladies, especially young women, sanitary napkins are being prepared under the “Stree Swabhiman Yojana” in all 13 Blocks of Amethi.

DigiGaon or Digital Village is conceptualised as a connected village where citizens can avail various e-Services of the Central Government, state Governments and private players in rural and remote villages in the country. These DigiGaons are projected to be change agents, promoting rural entrepreneurship and building rural capacities and livelihoods through community participation and collective action. The digital villages have been equipped with solar lighting facility in their community center, LED assembly unit, sanitary napkin unit and Wi-fi choupal (rural Wi-Fi infrastructure and a slew of suitable applications).

These villages are running the regular CSC services like banking, health, education, financial services, and a host of other services. In the initial phase villages like Dhanauri Kalan (G.B.Nagar), Sultanpur(Ghazibad) &Pindara Kothari (Amethi) in Uttar Pradesh, have been chosen for Digigaon Or Digital Village.