The village has all the information it needs at jatwarakalan.com. From voters' lists, health centre data, the latest on agriculture, tips for growing crops for local farmers.
Jatwara Kalan village in Sawai Madhopur district, nearly a 150 kms from Jaipur, is making Digital India come alive with its own website.
The village has all the information it needs at jatwarakalan.com. From voters' lists, health centre data, the latest on agriculture, tips for growing crops that are in season and helpful hints for local farmers - a lot is available on the bilingual website, in Hindi and English.
But what the residents say they find most useful about the website is a list of government officials who they can contact for their day to day problems. The district collector, patwari and tehsildar - both lower rung revenue officials, other administrative officials, the Member of Parliament who represents them and the local MLA - are all listed on this website with names and mobile numbers. The list saves the villagers a lot of time from doing the rounds of government offices.
The website is a labour of love for Hari Shankar Meena, 20, who says he left his well-paying job as a web developer at the IT major WIPRO because he wanted to do something for his village. "I wanted the village to develop and progress. That's why I don't want to work for myself but for my village," he says. A diploma holder in computer applications, he's now studying for his degree in computers from Rajasthan University. The villagers can feed information on the website they'd like to share and become stakeholders in the project, he says.
A large number of people from Jatwara Kalan live and work outside. "They find this website especially useful," says Bhogal Chand Meena, the village head. "We have all the information here: the crop output, how many tubewells the village has, what is the status of schools in the village and even a list of meritorious students with their pictures posted on the village website."
The area MLA, Diya Kumari has handpicked the 20-year-old to build websites for all villages in her constituency. "Now, I have actually put him to work by making websites for all our gram panchayats and making my constituency completely online," she tells NDTV.