Kozhikode, Aug 29 (IANS) Kozhikode was Friday declared the first e-literate city in Kerala, thanks to a special scheme that aims at making at least one member of each family computer literate. The e-literacy project was kicked off in the city in 2005. It was executed by Akshaya, a scheme of the Kerala government’s IT mission, which aims at 100 percent e-literacy in the state, assisted by the city corporation and women’s self-help group ‘Kudumbasree’.

“The objective was to make at least one person from each of the 80,532 households in the city e-literate. We met 93.5 percent of the target. The declaration is now being made as the city crossed 90 percent,” Kozhikode Corporation Mayor M. Bhaskaran said while making the announcement.

He said that under the project, each person was given a total of 15 hours of computer training in a period of 10 days.

“The fee per head was Rs.120. The corporation provided Rs.80, while the rest was paid by the trainee,” Bhaskaran said. The corporation spent a total of Rs.6.4 million for the project, he added.

A number of panchayats and districts in the state had earlier been announced as totally e-literate.