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