NRI Krishnakumar Taori facilitates computer lessons for Vidarbha farmers- IANS

Nagpur, July 15 (IANS) Over 120 farmers, farmers' widows and youth have enrolled for a free computer training centre set up by a non-resident Indian from Oman in a Maharashtra village.

Krishnakumar Taori, the group managing director of a construction company in Oman, is a native of the Ghuikhed village on the Yavatmal-Amravati border in the farmers' suicide-hit Vidarbha region.

"With more than 120 registrations, including farmers, widows and youth, they will be provided basic to advanced computer courses absolutely free of cost here," said Sanjay S. Dhotre, a BJP MP from Akola, at the centre's inauguration in Saturday. Taori was also present at the function.

Dhotre admitted that though MPs received funds for development works in their constituency, "such an idea to set up a computer centre did not strike me."

With 10 computers and an internet connection, this is the first such training centre in the region containing nearly 100 villages.

The courses will be taught in three shifts daily.

In April, Taori, who was born to a cotton farmer in Ghuikhed, decided to set up the centre after a visit to Pandharkavada village to distribute saris and blankets to 200 women, whose husbands had committed suicide due to debt, said an activist.

"At that time, he (Taori) had expressed a desire to set up computer training centre and industrial training institutes. Land acquisition for the institutes has been done," Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti chief Kishore Tiwari, who helped in Taori's efforts, told IANS Sunday.

He said that for the last five years, Taori, the group managing director of Hasan Juma Backer Trading and Contracting Co. LLC, has been engaged in providing free education to tribal children of the backward Melghat region in Amravati district.