While some locals said they have not received any reply from authorities even after registering on the portal of Dehradun Smart City Limited (DSCL) as volunteers for the Padho Doon Bado Doon literacy campaign for several weeks, the authorities stated that the delay is being caused by a technical glitch.
In a survey conducted by the district administration with the help of Anganwadi workers a few months ago, it was revealed that about 35,000 people in the district had never been to school. The survey also disclosed that there are more than 300 girls of age 11 years to 14 years who never finished their school education due to their families. In order to educate such people, the district administration announced a literacy campaign Padho Doon Badho Doon to eradicate illiteracy in the district by January 26 and appealed locals to volunteer to teach these people. However, the chief development officer (CDO) Nitika Khandelwal informed that only about 58 volunteers have registered so far on the portal. Though there is no age bar to register to be a volunteer as anyone capable of teaching including a school student can volunteer for the campaign, it took months for the administration to get only about 58 volunteer registrations. A few locals complained that they have registered to be volunteers in the portal for weeks but the administration has not contacted them. According to a Dharmpur resident Digvijay Singh Rawat, he registered himself as a volunteer on the portal on October 20 and he is still waiting for the response from the administration. Anshu Saini, a college student stated that it has been 15 days since she registered to be a volunteer but the administration haven’t sent even an acknowledgement email. Talking about this issue, Khandelwal stated that there is a glitch in the web portal of DSCL due to which the administration is unable to accept the registration of the volunteers. However, this issue will be resolved within a few days and all the eligible registrations will be accepted from this week too, stated the CDO. Meanwhile, she also informed that illiterate locals in 11 Gram Panchayats of the district have already been literate by the volunteers and hopefully, the administration will educate the remaining illiterate people in due time too.
Tuesday, 17 November 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
