To encourage them for upgrading their skills, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday distributed free laptops to meritorious Plus II pass-out students under the Biju Sashaktikaran Yojana.
A total of 15,000 students who successfully cleared the annual +2 examination in different streams including Science, Arts, Commerce and vocational courses have been selected to get free laptops under the scheme for the year 2019-20.
This year, the authorities made changes in selection criteria under 5T programme for the sake of transparency.
Instead of choosing top 15,000 students at the State level in different streams and categories, top students from each district in different streams have been selected by a selection committee constituted by the Government, said an official notification. This method was adopted to give better representation of meritorious students of all 30 districts.
Notably, 15,000 free laptops are being distributed among +2 pass-out meritorious students since 2013. As many as 90,203 students of different streams have been covered under the scheme so far.