Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday distributed free laptops to the meritorious Plus II pass-outs under the “Biju Sashaktikaran Yojana” at the Lok Seva Bhawan.
Higher Education Secretary Sashwart Mishra said, “Under the yojana which started since 2013, every year 15,000 laptops are distributed for free to 15,000 Plus II meritorious students. Till now, as many as 90,203 students have been covered under the scheme.
While on earlier occasions, top 15,000 students from different streams and castes were selected on the basis of merit, this year meritorious students have been selected at the district level by a selection committee constituted by the government, he added.
This method has been adopted over the earlier selection process to give better representation of meritorious students of all 30 districts of the state.
This year, the students have been provided with Lenovo laptops at a cost of Rs 29, 554 each.
This year, while 9,491 meritorious students from the General category have been selected for getting free laptops, 5,509 have been selected from the SC/ST category.