Chandigarh: The Congress-led Punjab government has cleared a proposal to distribute mobile phones to higher secondary students of government schools by December this year.
The Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in Gurdaspur on Thursday gave its nod to the scheme.
The state had announced its “Mobile Phones to the Youth” scheme, one of its poll promises and had made budgetary allocations for its implementation.
Giving details, an official spokesperson said, in the first phase, mobile phones would be distributed to girl students who don’t own a smartphone and are studying in government schools in this fiscal. The phones would have various features such as touch screen, camera and applications to access social media.
The vendor to implement the scheme would be selected through an open bidding process and the tender document would be floated by the Punjab Information Technology Corporation Ltd., a government statement said.
The vendor would be on board within a period of about two months, and the first the batch of phones is expected to be distributed in December.