Meghalaya govt aims to make Shillong a digital city: CM

Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma today said his government aims at making Shillong a 'digital city' besides being on the job to provide accessible Wi-Fi to all schools.
"Shillong will soon be privileged of getting access to internet through Wi-Fi making it a digital city. Wi-Fi will also be available in Tura and other tourist spots where people can have access to internet," Sangma said while distributing mobile tablets loaded with exam related contents to 25,000 secondary school students here.
"We want to sign the agreement with a company to implement this project of digitalizing the city, towns and schools within this month," the Chief Minister said.

The Chief Minister was addressing at the distribution ceremony of the Student Digital Learning Aid Scheme (SDLAS) to a total of 25,000 students of Class-XII from across the state held at Polo Grounds here.
Stating that the scheme is designed to empower the students and encourage e-learning, Sangma said, "The government is trying its best to mobilize more resources in order to be able to extend the scheme to the students studying in the secondary schools of the state."
He also informed that the government has introduced a scholarship programme for teachers where Rs 5000 is being given to them for pursuing training programme.

"We are also proposing to have teacher training centers in all the 39 blocks of the state to ensure that for all those who dream and aspire to take teaching as their profession, sky is the limit as there is no end to aspiration," he said.

Information and Technology Minister AL Hek said, "Meghalaya is the first state in the North East to distribute latest technology mobile tablets to all class XII students both state board and central boards in the state."
The class XI & XII syllabi are already available in the mobile tablets and last year the government had distributed the M-Tabs to nearly 24,000 students.

Pointing out that the scheme is part of the Digital India programme, he said, "The Digital India envisages Broadband connectivity for all citizens and in Meghalaya already about 250 km of National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) has been laid by RAILTEL.