Post news network
Bhubaneswar: The state government Wednesday directed the higher education and electronics and IT departments to start in January distribution of free laptops to meritorious students of the 2014-15 Plus II batch.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who was reviewing the free laptop distribution scheme, asked officials to procure laptops through Orissa Computer Application Centre (OCAC) and start distributing them from January 2015, sources said.
He also instructed the officials concerned to distribute free laptops to the meritorious Plus II students of the 2015-16 academic session from June next.
The state has distributed 14,750 free laptops to Plus II students of the 2013-14 batch. The rest would be distributed soon, sources said. The government has decided to distribute laptops to around 15,000 students of the 2014-15 batch at an estimated cost of Rs 30crore.
The government is also providing five types of scholarships to Plus II, Plus III, PG and technical education students. It disbursed scholarship of Rs 49.36 crore to 24,544 meritorious students in 2014-15 and has so far disbursed Rs 18.20 crore to the students selected for the 2015-16 academic year.
The Chief Minister also reviewed the progress of construction of model degree colleges in the eight districts of Nabrangpur, Nuapada, Boudh, Rayagada, Sonepur, Deogarh, Malkangiri and Nayagarh. The colleges are being set up at an estimated cost of Rs 12 crore each. The state government has decided to complete the construction of five model degree colleges by the end of June, sources said.