Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh diagnosed corona virus as a malady afflicting supply of smartphones in the State. Capt Amarinder, concluding the debate on the Governor’s Address on Wednesday, declared that smartphones are the out-of-coverage area for Punjab youth following the outbreak of coronavirus in China — drawing sharp criticism from the opposition.
The Chief Minister informed the House that providing smartphones was the topmost priority of the State Government, and it would surely be distributed. “However, the delay is due to coronavirus,” said the Chief Minister.
Taking a dig at Capt Amarinder’s statement, the Opposition refused to buy the Chief Minister’s reasons and lashed out at him for coming out with novel “excuses” every time for not fulfilling the pre-poll promises.
Notably, the Congress party, before coming to power, had declared in its election manifesto to distribute free mobile phones to the youth to “encourage and incentivize them to use digital technology in day-to-day lives” under Connect with Capt campaign.
Even, in its first budget, the state government had allotted Rs 10 crore budget for the ‘smartphones for youth’ for the first phase of the scheme. However, the phones were never distributed in the state government’s three-year tenure.
The opposition has, time and again, take on the ruling party for not fulfilling its promise to the state’s youth.
Clarifying the government’s stand on it, the Chief Minister said that the first set of smartphones, promised by the Government, would be distributed as soon as China is able to send them to Punjab.
“The phones have already been ordered from China, which unfortunately had to delay the release of the order due to the unprecedented coronavirus problem,” said the government press statement quoting the Chief Minister.
He said that the issue had been rightly raised by some of the members since the promise of smartphones was part of his government’s election manifesto. “The State Government has already notified the scheme and procurement of the phones has only been delayed due to the health emergency that had led to a shutdown in China, as a result of which the consignment of phones has not been received,” he added.
The phones will be provided as soon as we receive the consignment, Capt Amarinder said adding that the Congress president had, in fact, set up committees to ensure implementation of all promises in Congress-led states and the smartphones promise would definitely be fulfilled by his government at the earliest possible.
Notably, the State Cabinet in September 2019 had decided to accelerate the process of distribution of mobile phones besides approving various modalities for the choice of vendor and bidding process.
At that time, it was decided that the first set of mobile phones would be distributed from December 2019 to girl students studying in Class XI and XII in government schools, who do not already own a smartphone.
It was also decided that the vendor, who would implement the scheme, would be selected in a transparent manner by the Punjab Information Technology Corporation Limited, a government agency.
Following this, the Chief Minister, on December 2, 2019, tweeted that the first set of mobile phones would be distributed on the Republic Day. “This 26th January, when we celebrate Republic Day, we will start the 1st Phase of the smartphone distribution. 1st batch of 1.6 lakh smartphones will be given to girl students of Class 11 & 12. Hoping that these phones will help them in their studies & make them more tech-savvy,” tweeted the Chief Minister.
As the State Government once again dropped its plans to distribute the much-awaited smartphones on Republic Day, the state Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla announced another deadline, March 31, 2020, pointing that the mobile phones were being tested, and it was taking time.
Now, the Chief Minister on Wednesday said in the House that the phones will be provided as soon as the Government would receive the consignment, which has been delayed due to coronavirus.
Dubbing the excuse as “hilarious”, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Aman Arora underlined that the promise is older than the coronavirus. “Coronavirus came just a month back, but the government’s promise is three years old. Now they are saying that smartphones could not be distributed because of coronavirus,” said Arora.