Two Years after coming to power, keeping in mind the Lok Sabha Elections, The Chief-Minister Amarinder Singh- led Congress government in Punjab has approved the project of distributing smartphones among the youth of the state.
40,000 students are to be covered in the first phase of distributing smartphones, costing ₹10 crore as promised by the Congress during the Assembly Poll.
To be able to receive the smartphones, the students would be required to submit self-certified affidavits, stating that they do not own a smartphone. They would be provided a one-time bundled 12 GB data and 600 local minutes talk time (voice) with one-year validity.
According to the spokesperson, the Cabinet also authorized the chief minister to finalize the name of the scheme, besides authorizing the chairman of the committee for procurement and distribution of smartphones to make changes in the Request For Proposal (RFP) as may be required in the future
The vendor who is responsible for implementing the scheme shall be selected through the bidding process for which the document has already been floating by Punjab Information and Communication Technology Corporation. Vendors shall be on board within a period of about two months and the first batch of phones is expected to be distributed in the month of March.