As part of its continuing initiative to promote digital literacy among the elderly, a digital education programme was organised by The Statesman in collaboration with the Noida Bengali Cultural Association (NBCA) on Sunday morning. A number of senior citizens, both men and women, participated in it.

Experts gave the participants practical and useful tips about the ways of using various digital systems for online transactions. They appeared to be very keen to acquire digital knowledge by taking part in the event organized at Kalibari, Noida.

The programme was conducted by experts from The Statesman, trained by CSC (Common Services Centre) e-Governance Services India Limited, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.

It was the 16th event in The Statesman’s series of such programmes aimed at making senior citizens digitally literate.

Practical demonstrations were given by experts on Unified Payment Interface (UPI), Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), the e-wallet system and the use of debit and credit cards among a variety of digital transaction systems.

An interactive session was also held where participants asked a variety of questions related to digital education with the experts answering their questions in a manner easily understandable by the senior citizens.

NBCA president Ashok Arya, told The Statesman, “The quality of presentation was excellent and senior citizen should use digital methods for safe and quick transaction. In fact, everybody should go through it to upgrade the use of technology.”

A senior citizen and NBCA Secretary Rajat Banerjee, said, “It was a good experience to learn the ways of using various digital systems for online shopping.  Senior citizens must learn the ways to keep pace with digital education otherwise their life may get more complicated.”

One of the participants and a senior citizen Nirmal Guha said, “Attending and learning from this programme was a nice experience.

Senior citizens should learn the systems of digital transaction, but there is also a risk involved in it.”

Fresh food packets were provided to the senior citizens at the end of the programme which were sponsored by ‘Just Bengali’ (www.justbengali.com), a community-based e-portal, delivering Bengali products like sweets, exotic fruits, vegetables, chicken, mutton and fish delicacies among other things.