Rajasthan becomes the first state in the country to offer free email addresses to its residents in Hindi, with the facility being name@rajasthan.bharat (in Devanagari script). According to Hindustan Times, the first email id that was created was for the chief minister Vasundhara Raje – Vasundhara@rajasthan.bharat.
The project has been implemented by the state IT department in collaboration in the form of in-sourcing with private IT companies, a senior official informed HT. The official also pointed out that even the Japanese who like to work in their own language don’t have a linguistic email id.
The initiative will ensure maximum participation of people towards e-governance and also that maximum facilities are available in vernacular language. This e-mail is a small part of the bigger picture ‘Rajasthan DigiKit’ which has an enrollment of more than one crore people.Official to the Hindustan TImes
“During Digifest Kota in August 2017, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje had shown the intent to have a vernacular e-mail service for the residents who are not fluent in English as she felt that language should not be a hindrance for anybody using emails or electronic communication. Hence, the vernacular e-mail, in Hindi, was launched on 3 December. Rajasthan is the first, and currently the only state, to have a vernacular e-mail,” principal secretary, department of information technology and communications, Akhil Arora, told HT.
In December 2016, BSNL had launched email address services in eight Indian languages for its broadband users. However, reported HT, Rajasthan’s Hindi email service is for all Internet users as not merely restricted to broadband.
It is interesting to note that as per TRAI, total Internet subscribers in India are just about 30 percent of the country’s population.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)
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