Comat rural businesses centres will now offer English courses through compact discs and through a VSAT link. These rural businesses centres turn into e-Classrooms across Haryana villages.
For the afternoon class, teacher is available on the screen of the computer at Ampla village in Sampla block and Rohtak district. The English speaking course of the BBC powered by the VSAT link provided by Hughes Communication India Ltd at the E Disha centres is being lapped up by village girls and boys across Haryana. The centres are 1,200-odd common service centres or rural business centres run by Comat Technologies covering 7,000 villages in the country including Karnataka, Haryana, Sikkim ,Tripura and Uttar Pradesh. The newest chapters have been set up in the NorthEast and Uttaranchal. All centres are not under the CSE scheme of the Ministry of Information and Technology. Some are run independently by Comat. In Hyderabad, slum children have made their first animation film after training at a similar centre started by Nasscom Foundation- a collaboration of several IT companies to do corporate social responsibility together. Nasscom Foundation has opened its innings now in Uttar Pradesh with several Nasscom Knowledge centres. At Bhadsa village in Jhajjar district of Haryana, E-Disha has students from neighbouring schools who are learning their first lessons in computers. e-Disha is already providing online coaching tutorials for entrance examinations for engineering and medical colleges. The students pay a fee of INR 640 to access computer system and 2000 for a three month English speaking course. In Jhajjar district there are 45 students and 45 in Rohtak. Soon 300 village classrooms will begin to teach English in Uttar Pradesh. Hughes has lined up more courses for students across the country through its V SAT facility, including a course for engineering students. In the rural scenario, Comat and Hughes are working out a programme to provide coaching for medical and engineering entrance at a fee of INR 24,000. Also coming soon is a course in retail, targeting rural centres in Haryana.