[Nyatum Doke]
The juggernaut of digitisation is pervading every inch of our life. Of late, everyone has realised the importance of running in tandem with the ever-evolving technological development, and the state government is not an exception.
A first-of-its-kind capacity-building workshop on ’emerging technologies’ was conducted for the officials recently by the ATI under the aegis of the state government. The rate at which technological growth is happening is unanticipated and unprecedented. Every second, the world around us is changing, pushing our existing set of skills and knowledge towards redundancy. In this context, where do we stand? Are we running fast enough?
Charting the path: The efforts taken
As per a PIB report “Over 1,310 gram panchayats have been connected with optical fibre under the Bharat Net scheme and over 1,156 more towers have been planned to bring digital inclusion.” To add, recently, 254 4G mobile towers were dedicated to the state, and the towers will cover 336 villages. Also locations for establishing 1,156 4G towers, planned under the USOF, have already been identified.
As part of another scheme, ie, 4G saturation scheme, 2,424 4G sites are to be installed, which includes 270 sites through OFC; 1,237 sites through microwave; and 917 through VSAT to bring more connectivity. Also, under the Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP) and other schemes, the government is looking forward to bridge the physical as well as digital gap, thereby ensuring inclusive growth and inclusive development, reaching the last mile.
An introspection: Is all well?
The efforts of the government are commendable. However, the installation of towers, as we have seen on many instances, does not ensure necessary service. The towers need constant power supply and most of the time, owing to erratic power supply, the efforts get defeated. Then the maintenance of the entire setup, be it a mobile tower station or a VSAT, needs skills, even for minor maintenance work or defects the services get affected for months. The same is the case with optical fibers, which is more delicate. Therefore, along with the quantity, ensuring consistency of the service and quality human resource is crucial.
Training the officers and the officials is a good step, but we also need to take up a bottom-up approach. Reaping the benefits of digitisation or emerging technology would require an overhaul of our educational system. We need to revamp and take forward with vigour programmes like the Adhunik Shiksha Yojana (Smart Classroom) that was launched by the CM some years back. The smart classroom, if pursued in the true sense, has the potential to bring great change. However, we seldom find smart classrooms in schools.
Also, apart from just making the classrooms smart, we may also take up efforts to make the students smarter. We may encourage the students to look beyond the traditional subjects and learn basic computer programming, computer language, emerging technologies, etc, by introducing it into the syllabus of the schools. I understand that it sounds difficult, but the future will be a lot more difficult if the early initiation is not made. We may try to do it on a pilot basis in a few selected schools. Then the skill training being sponsored by the government under various schemes should include training related to repairing and maintenance of V-SAT, telecom towers, computer hardware and other related future proof skills, apart from focusing on mundane skills. It will help in preparing a pool of future ready youths.
When will Arunachal be ready?
Though Arunachal is in a nascent stage of digital revolution and a discussion on emerging technology may look like a farsighted dream, given the present pace of growth, I am sure that we will be at the crossroads sooner than we are expecting. Questions like ‘Is Arunachal ready for emerging technologies’?’ or ‘When will Arunachal be ready?’, then, is a misnomer, as the digital revolution is already becoming a reality. It’s everywhere. As the saying goes, “We are forced to love something that we would otherwise prefer to love to hate.”
With the emergence of sophisticated and pervasive technologies, new cultural and social dynamics will evolve. We need to prepare and make ourselves ready for all the challenges that the emerging technologies may bring. Revolutionary beginnings have already been initiated by the state government. Surely, in the days to come, we will be able to embrace the forces of digital revolution along with the emerging technologies with fewer hiccups and less hesitations. (The writer is DIPRO, Longding)
