NILAMBUR: The Nedumkayam tribal colony at Nilambur in Malappuram lacks basic facilities including toilets. However, the colony has now become a role model to the country by becoming the first ‘digital’ tribal colony in India.The people in this colony—which also faces threats from Maoists— are all set for digital transactions. The district collector Amit Meena has now officially declared Nedumkayam tribal colony as the first digital and cashless colony at a function held in the colony on Tuesday.The declaration was made after a week-long training for the entire tribal people of the colony in cashless transaction and digital literacy.The training was completed with the support of National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteers of EMEA Arts and Science College Kondotty and Jan Sikshan Sansthan (JSS), Malappuram.As part of formal launch of the project, every member of the colony sent Rs 5 to the account of district collector using smart phones and the collector returned Rs 25 to each of them through online transaction.The Nedumkayam tribal colony is situated in Karulayi panchayat which was adopted by P V Abdul Wahab MP, as part of Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) project.The computer and Wifi facilities were provided at the community centre in the colony by JSS. A tribal volunteer has also been appointed for a year long continuous digital literacy programme.MP said that the programme is a landmark in the ongoing development programme of entire tribal region and the project would be extended to all tribal colonies soon. “We have given training to selected people of the colony and they will train others to use cashless transaction facilities. We are expecting that all people of the colony would be familiar with the digital cash transaction method soon,” he said.The cashless transaction methods will soon become popular among people of the colony, said deputy collector J O Arun.