A day after the Orissa High Court paved the way for the conduct of urban body polls, a hurried State Government on Wednesday unveiled the free laptop scheme, almost a week ahead of its scheduled launch on August 15, anticipating the model code of conduct.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched the distribution of laptops to meritorious students of Plus-Two colleges under Biju Yuva Sashaktikaran Yojana at Jaydev Bhavan here.
The State Government has identified 15,235 meritorious students from across the State who passed Plus-Two examinations this year as the beneficiaries of the new scheme. Naveen said the future belongs to an ‘age of information,’ but the State was still lacking behind when it comes to uniform access to communication technology. The complete distribution of the laptops is expected to be completed within three months. Of the total students identified, 3,057 and 2,031 students belong to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories, respectively.