Lucknow: Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, gave away mobile phones and tabs to one lakh final year students of graduation and para-graduation, on Saturday, on December 25, which is also the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The freebies were handed over to the final year students at a function held at the Ekana Stadium, in which a large number students from various districts of the state came to attend the event.
This was the first phase of distribution of cell phones and tabs to the final year students for enhancing their technical skills. During the first phase of doling out freebies to students, at least 60,000 mobile phone and 40,000 tabs were distributed among the students.
It was perhaps the largest ever freebies distributed to such a larger number of students. This seemed to have never happened earlier, source said.
In the first phase of the distribution, the final year students of MA, BSc, MBBS, MD, BTech, MTech, PhD, MSME and other skill development students would be benefitted from the scheme.
Special secretary to I-T and electronics department, Kumar Vinit, said, "More than 38 lakh students have registered for the scheme on the DG Shakti Portal so far."
Students were given mobiles of branded companies such as Lava, Samsung and Acer.
In the first phase of distribution, order worth Rs 38 crore placed through Government e-Marketplace (GEM) portal for maintaining transparency in the deal. At least 10 lakh mobiles at the rate of Rs 10,740 were purchased, whereas 20 lakh tabs were brought at the cost of Rs 12,606. The companies supplied more than 17 lakh mobile phones and tabs so far.
