Combined Vellore dist tops in laptop distribution, Chennai second

The data released by the Department of Special Programme Implementation states that in the last nine years, from 2011 till 2020, 51.67 lakh laptops were distributed for school and college students across the state out of which 3,10,027 laptops were distributed for students in the combined Vellore district, which has now been trifurcated with Tirupattur and Ranipet.

The data also reveals that Chennai stands second with the distribution of 3,09,282 lakh laptops in the last nine years. The Nilgiris has the lowest number of students benefited from the laptop schemes as only 43,481 students have received laptops.

Among the students, school students have received the lion’s share as they constitute 87.95 percentage of the total laptops received. Out of the remaining 12.05 per cent of college students, arts and science college students have received the major share of 8.15 per cent, followed by polytechnic colleges with 3 percentage and engineering college students receiving the remaining 0.9 percentage of government laptops.

Tamil Nadu is the first state to implement the project of distributing laptops to school and college students with the intention to bridge the knowledge gap in students on IT and provide a level playing field. Since 2011, the total cost for distribution of laptops is Rs 7,257 crore and in the current year laptops will be distributed to 5 lakh students with an allocation of Rs 949.30 crore.