A joint Digital Literacy Program of Google India & Tata Trust, the ‘Internet Saathi’ will roll out across 400 villages & reach 1 lakh women inPurulia District in West Bengal in the next few months.

Sapna Chadha, head of marketing, Google India, at the launch of the Bengal leg, said, “In the next few months, we will see the project roll out across 400 villages and reach one lakh women in Purulia”.

In the programme, women are trained to learn and explore various uses and benefits of the Internet.

It has covered nine states and now will made available in West Bengal, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Tripura.

Ganesh Neelam, Head-Innovation at the Tata Trust, said, “This has a ripple effect among the community and is a sustained, long-term effort through which these women get comfortable in using a smartphone. They use it to access services such as healthcare, agriculture and educational resources etc.”

The selected Women wil be trained and then these women will further coach other women in their villages and neighbouring hamlets about how to use internet on smartphones and tablet devices.

Indumati Mahato, hailing from West Bengal’s Purulia district, said, “At first, many questioned why they should use Internet and what benefit it will bring us. When a pregnant woman in our village found it difficult to access a healthcare centre to deliver the child, I used the Internet to find out a suitable place in a neighbouring district in Jharkhand. People have now started to realise how the Internet can help us."

According to Neelam, the challenges include cutting across the language and cultural barriers and mobile connectivity in remote villages.