Bhopal(Madhya Pradesh): Ambitious scheme of state government to provide laptops to the class 12th meritorious students, has not been approved and no allocation of budget has been made for the same for the current academic year, as per officials.
Meritorious students from the state, who have cleared the Class 12 Board Examination this year, are waiting to get laptops as a gift from the government.
The state government is yet to approve the 'Laptop Distribution Scheme for Meritorious Students' for this year. No financial allocation for the purpose has been made either, say officials. The Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE) had announced the results of the Class 12 examinations conducted by it on May 29, 2022. However, four months later, the students are still waiting for their laptops.
Laptops were not presented to Class 12 passouts in the last academic year (2020-21) as the MPBSE had not conducted annual examinations and all the students were declared successful on the basis of their internal assessment. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, schools were closed for most part of the academic year and classes were held online. Due to this and the need to maintain social distance, the state board as well as the CBSE had decided not to hold annual examinations.
However, this year annual examinations were conducted and marks have been awarded to the students. The school education has compiled the data of eligible students.
Commissioner, School Education, Abhay Verma told Free Press that this year 48,338 students from the state are entitled to receive the laptops. In the academic year 2019-20, laptops were distributed to 40,551 students.
In 2020, under the scheme a sum of Rs 25,000 was provided to the students of the state government schools, who were permanent residents of the state and who had scored 85 per cent or higher marks in the MPBSE examinations in the case of general category candidates and 75 per cent in the case of SCs or STs. The scheme was applicable to regular as well as private candidates.
Sanjay Kumar, Additional Director, Finance, told the Free Press that around Rs 210 crores would be needed to finance the scheme this year. Last time, he said, Rs 175 crore was spent on it. However, to date, neither the scheme has been approved nor financial allocation has been made for it. Sanjay Kumar said that a proposal for approval of the scheme and making a budget available for it is pending with the government.
In 2019, cheques of Rs 25,000 each were distributed to some meritorious students by the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan at a grand function organised at the Lal Parade Ground on May 29 2019. The amount was transferred to the bank accounts of the remaining students.
