4 Crore College Students Will Soon Get Free Laptops, Mobile; Rs 60,000 Crore Will Be Spent!

In one of the biggest push for Digital India, Govt of India has announced that 4 crore college students across India will get free digital devices such as laptops, computers, mobiles and more.

Rs 60,000 crore budget has been allocated by the Govt for the same.

4 Crore College Students Will Get Digital Devices

Govt of India’s big push towards Digital India has been announced: 40% of all college students in India’s colleges and Universities will now get free digital devices.

This includes laptops, computers, mobiles, tablets, and televisions.

Approximately Rs 15,000 per device will be spent by Govt over this mega-exercise, wherein 4 crore students will be digitally empowered.

This announcement was made during a presentation for 15th Finance Commission by the officials.

Out of this expenditure of Rs 60,000 crore, State Governments will provide Rs 36,473 crore, while the rest of the amount will be provided by Centre.

Purpose Of This Digital Push?

As per the analysts, the coronavirus pandemic, and subsequent lockdown has proved to be the biggest trigger for this scheme.

Due to the lockdown, all schools and colleges are closed, and only online education is the way forward. 

As reported in the media, only 8% of the students have the means to get online education as the rest 92% of the students don’t have any smartphone or Internet at their homes.

This is a massive digital divide, and fails the purpose of online education.

Govt of India’s scheme for offering digital devices like smartphones, TVs, laptops, tablets is a means to bridge this divide and enable more and more students to avail online education mode.

This mega program to offer digital devices to 40% of college students in India will be over by 2025-26.

There are 3.75 crore students in colleges and Universities in Inda, and the plan is to cover 1.5 crore students by 2021-22, and then 55 lakh by 2022-23, 61 lakh by 2023-24 and 73 lakh by 2014-25.

We will keep you updated as more details come in. 

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