Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Friday launched the statewide distribution of tablets at token price of Rs 1,000 to 3.50 lakh students who took admission in the first year of college-engineering-polytechnic after passing Standard-XII or Standard-X examination in March-April, 2017 as part of the Government’s ‘New Avenues of Modern Education through Tablets’ (NAMO-e-TAB).
Speaking at the function, Rupani reiterated his resolve to make the Gujarati youth world-class, make them ‘new age power and not new age voter’, make them ‘job-givers and not job-seekers’. His Government has made a budgetary provision of Rs 200-crore to provide the information about the world at the hands of students mostly coming from middle class families. It is part of attempt to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of a New India paying its democratic dividend. He recalled it was Modi who had started world-class specialty universities for forensic science, law, petroleum, marine and organic.
He said the Government will use Rs 30 crore from the token amount in making campuses Wi-Fi compliant, creating e-libraries and digital classrooms and arrange e-lectures. He wished the students used the tablets to browse online textbooks, journals, notebooks and reference materials. He wished the youth became the vehicles of change as envisioned by Gandhi, Sardar, Narmad and Moid.
Deputy CM Nitinbhai Patel said NAMO-E-TAB is part of the State Government’s initiative for all-round development, to make the State an international educational hub, allocating whopping Rs 25,000-crore for higher education in Gujarat during the current fiscal.