Over one lakh college students have registered as volunteers for the Human Resource Development Ministry's Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (VISAKA), a campaign launched on December 1 to boost awareness on digital financial literacy.
Commenting on its future, based on the responses received so far, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that he hopes that the number increases to 25 lakh.
The training module includes details regarding opening of bank account, linking Aadhaar card with the account, linking mobile number to Aadhaar and all other required information for digital literacy to move towards a less cash society, the minister said.
In the first phase of the campaign, the government is targeting 500 cities having more than one lakh population each. The human resources development minister is expected to address over 20,000 students on December 20 in Pune.
After the video conference on December 1, where Javadekar urged the heads of centrally funded higher education institutions to sign up students to become "agents of change" by joining the Vittiya Saksharata Campaign as volunteers, the ministry quantified and incentivised their contributions.
Each student has been asked to raise awareness on cashless modes of transactions and digital economy by reaching out to at least 10 families, besides the student's own, until January 12 2017. Students will earn academic credits for joining the campaign.
The ministry had also announced other similar measures for educational institutions. For instance, CBSE ordered schools to stop using cash for any purpose, including procurements, wages to contractual workers and other transactions, in a circular issued to schools on December 10. Now, the deadline for CBSE schools to stop accepting cash is January 1.
On December 1, the ministry also appealed for cash ban in all central universities and colleges, including the IITs, NITs, and IIMs, following which the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued an order directing them to do away with cash transactions in any of their dealings.
