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Lucknow: Ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will distribute free smartphones and tablets to around one crore final year students in the state.
The first phase of the scheme will start on December 25, which marks the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
An official statement issued here on Monday said that one lakh smartphones and tablets will be given to final year students at the Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on that day.
The announcement comes days after Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav took a veiled dig at Adityanath, accusing the chief minister of not using a laptop.
A large number of girl students from every district of the state will participate in the program to be held on December 25, the statement said.
In this event, Adityanath will distribute 60,000 smartphones and 40,000 tablets to the youth.
According to the statement, about one crore students will be given free smartphones and tablets to make them technically strong.
It said that the final year students of MA, BA, BSc, ITI, MBBS, MD, BTech and MTech will be given preference.
Kumar Vineet, Special Secretary, IT and Electronics Department, said, “More than 38 lakh youth have registered themselves on Digi Shakti portal. Further registration is going on.”
Orders have been issued by the government to supply smartphones and tablets to companies like Lava, Samsung and Acer. The companies will provide them before December 24, the statement said.
In the first phase, orders worth Rs 2,035 crore have been placed for the purchase of smartphones and tablets. It said that orders have been placed at Rs 10,740 per smartphone for 10.50 lakh smartphones and Rs 12,606 per tablet for 7.20 lakh tablets.
Addressing a public meeting in Rae Bareli on Friday, Akhilesh Yadav had said, “People have started using mobile phones even in villages and they know how to use it. But our baba’s chief minister doesn’t know how to conduct him. Since he does not know how to use a laptop, he is not distributing laptops to the youth. The laptops distributed during the SP regime are still running.
Read also: Yogi Adityanath ‘All-rounder’, Opposition Can’t Face His ‘Inswingers & Outswingers’: Says Rajnath
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