Website soon to track missing children: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Hyderabad, Dec 13, 2014: Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said that his department is currently working on a project to create a website which will help track missing children in the country.

"We see many children from poor families go missing in this country. Rich people can find their children if they go missing. Poor people are not able to do so due to poverty. So we decided to make a portal for lost and found children," said Prasad.

"If you see some poor children on the streets wandering, please take a picture of them and upload that photograph. We will put that in the portal. That picture will be verified on an all India-basis. I have told my officers to work on this project," the Minister for Communications and IT said in his address at a program organised by NGO Tech for Seva (TFS) here.

TFS creates platform to connect innovation happening at various levels in the society with partner NGOs, Ground level Innovators, Scientific/Research community and Corporates to create an eco system that multiplies and ultimately benefits society at large.

Speaking about initiatives taken by the IT department, the minister said the Government has recently launched an Aadhaar-based digital life certificate for over crore pensioners which would eventually benefit them. He also said Postal Department is in the process of exploring various opportunities in e-commerce business.

Prasad urged the younger generation to come up with ideas that would help bridge digital divide between rural and urban India. "I would expect the great minds in the country to come with ideas in IT, Communications, Medical Defence and
Technology which are service-centric or at least pro-people," Prasad said.

According to the minister, as many as 85 million bank accounts were opened till yesterday in response to "Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana" program initiated by the BJP-government. He hoped that the number would cross 100 million-mark soon.

PTI