The Ernakulam District Panchayat is about to reach out to potential donors of electronic gadgets, mostly used desktops, laptops, and printers, to give a further momentum to its project Revive aimed at furthering digital literacy among the aged.
The project is being run by the district panchayat in association with the Institute of Human Resources Development (IHRD), an autonomous educational institution set up by the State government. It is primarily aimed at beneficiaries of Naipunya Nagaram, a project jointly implemented by the district panchayat and the District Planning Committee to impart computer training to elderly people.
“We have made an initial allocation of ₹10 lakh for the project that can be enhanced depending on requirements. We have fixed a ceiling of ₹5,000 for IHRD to buy spare parts and repair the donated gadgets. The unusable would be scrapped as e-waste and handed over to the agency concerned,” said District Panchayat President Ullas Thomas.
Already, five desktops and three laptops have been received under the project since its launch earlier this month with SNM College, Maliankara, and Patriarch Ignatius Zakka First Training College, Puthencruz, being the dominant early donors. Of them, four have already been refurbished and will be installed once the district panchayat identifies the beneficiaries. Thirty more systems are already in offer.
“The district panchayat has already reached out to Infopark, which could prove to be a big donor considering the frequency with which it upgrades and replaces systems. The District Collector has also promised to donate old systems from the collectorate. A meeting is about to be convened so as to make National Service Scheme volunteers in colleges active participants in the project,” said Jaimon Jacob, deputy director, Ernakulam regional office of the IHRD.
The project was his brainchild considering how he had been personally collecting e-waste, refurbishing it and putting it to reuse where he had been posted. For instance, Mr. Jacob had taken the initiative to collect around 12 tonnes of e-waste as part of the campaign of the Clean Kerala Company when he was the NSS programme manager at the Model Engineering College, Thrikkakara, in 2016.
“In the next phase, home appliances will be similarly repaired and gifted back to needy people,” he said.