Next on the agenda, BITA to adopt a village in Gujarat

Baroda Information Technology Association (BITA)’s success at its IT Expo

2004 has already encouraged the association to start working on its next project

assisting the state government in its initiative to make Gujarat IT literate, by

adopting a nearby village.

The association will soon be meeting up with the collector to decide upon the

village. "The government wants the villager to access the Internet for

information. Therefore, BITA members will have to train these villagers to

access and use the PC. The government will already provide the computer

hardware. This training will take place at the village panchayat office,"

said Dinesh Patel, President of BITA.

BITA’s exhibition also had witnessed a unique convergence, as there was

telecommuni-cations, IT and also automobile company like General Motors at the

expo.

There was also representation of the state government in the form of Nagrik

Seva Kendra. This Kendra gets various certificates like income certificate,

caste certificate, OBC certificate, domicile certificate and senior citizen

certificate. All types of affidavits, arms licenses renewal, petition writer

renewal, hotel license renewal and stamp vendor renewal are also iss-ued through

this kendra. Software developed by NIC automates the procedures at the Seva

Kendra, right from the receipt of application and approval to printing of

various certificates. The kendra has initiated these activities since May 2003.

The three-day BITA expo had a total strength of 123 stall participants and

one lakh visitors. "There were sales happening because all the products at

the exhibition were being sold with the new revised prices. A lot of consumables’

stalls were put up at the exhibition which also got a good response,"

claimed Patel. In fact, due to the price cut the association had also informed

all the members and the participants not to und-ercut and sell products to

attain easy business.

A lot of spirit was displayed, as there was a rally which had almost 100 cars

and 150 two wheelers led by a horse carriage, bullock carts etc. The Vadodara

collector Bhagyesh Jha, Mayor NV Patel and MLA Jitubhai Sukdiya were also

present along with the BITA committee. On the third day, there was a blood

donation drive, where there were 120 donors.

Lot of innovative products like the Gujarati keyboard and new life Nicron

software, which runs Windows 2000 server and Internet on 486/P1 without hard

disk, floppy drive or a CD drive, were displayed in the expo. BITA also had

mem-bers from other associations like SITA and ABITA.

Nancy Sudheer


Baroda