New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Culture has partnered with the Common Services Centres (CSC), a special purpose vehicle under the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), to undertake the first-ever cultural survey of India's villages.
The survey titled 'Mera Gaon, Meri Dharohar' seeks to document the cultural identity at the village level by involving citizens to share what makes their village, block, or district unique. The exercise is expected to be completed by mid-2022. As per the agreement signed between the Culture Ministry and CSC, the latter will develop a mobile application and train the village-level entrepreneurs (VLEs) in conducting the survey. Over 4 lakh VLEs, managing the CSCs across the country, will conduct the survey in 6.38 lakh villages and upload the details on the application.
Under the survey, VLEs will conduct meetings with citizens in the villages and then upload interesting facts about their village, its places of interest, customs, and traditions, famous personalities, festivals and beliefs, art and culture, etc, on the application. VLEs will also upload photos and videos regarding these aspects on the application.
The survey builds upon a successful track record of CSCs engaging on official enumerations like the 7th Economic Census and some other surveys done for the state governments," said Dinesh Tyagi, who is CSC's managing director.