new delhi communications minister arun shourie is casting his net wide to catch em young on wednesday he announced an ambitious project to connect 60000 schools either run by the government or funded by it through intranet and the internet to bring information technology to the classroomthe project called vidya vahini was formally launched by prime minister atal bihari vajpayee through a videoconference with the maharashtra chief minister sushil kumar shinde andhra pradesh cm chandrababu naidu gujarat cm narendra modi jharkhand cm arjun munda west bengal infotech minister manvendra mukherjee and up urban development minister lalji tandonthese are the states where pilots had been run prior to finalising the projectthe project to run through the 10th plan envisages providing these schools with computer labs to facilitate it education internet access online library academic services and webcastingshourie said pilot projects had been undertaken in 140 schools in seven districts in the country lucknow and allahabad in up gandhinagar in gujarat hazaribagh in jharkhand kuppam in andhra pradesh south 24parganas in west bengal and parlivaijnath in maharashtrain each of these districts 20 schools were selected in consultation with the state government each school was provided one computer lab with hardware worth rs 10 lakh all the labs will be interconnected through the net or intranet this will help create a central knowledge pool and educational tools that can be drawn from at will by any interested student teacher or schooldescribing the merits of the project shourie said it was not a means to replace teachers but to enhance their teaching capability through virtual realitya student of geography will learn and absorb facts better if he is taken on a virtual tour of say andhra pradesh where he can see the places and hear the music shourie said this is much better than a reference to a flat map he addedshourie said the project was drawn up by the department of information technology dit and is being implemented by ernet india an autonomous body under the dit while national informatics centre has developed the software isro is providing satellite link through a transponder on the insat3cthe curriculum has been provided by content providers super infosoft vision info solution and jil information technology ltd