Just days before he completes his first year in office, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav fulfilled his most ambitious poll promise: distributing free laptops to as many as 10,000 students who have passed class 12 last year. This promise, which was made to the electorate by the Samajwadi Party in the face of the ?anti-English? and ?anti-computers? image that it had garnered during its last regime under Mulayam Singh Yadav, was a challenge that had been taken up by the CM, who is purportedly himself a technology buff.
?This device is a wheel of change which can transform your world. It is your property and it would help you to learn new things. These laptops would prove to be wheels that would take you to new worlds,? the CM told the beneficiaries after handing them the laptops in the state capital on Monday.
The much-hyped scheme, which was kicked off today, will now see the government machinery distributing them in different districts as well. The government?s target is to distribute this laptop to 15 lakh class XII pass students of the state within the next few weeks. All students of different boards like Uttar Pradesh State Secondary Education, CBSE, ICSE, UP Sanskrit Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad and madrasas would get these laptops.
Taking a dig at the opposition parties and other naysayers, the chief minister said that the opposition parties had never thought the SP could fulfill this promise. And even when the project was being prepared, people had said it would never take off.