INDIA’S SOUTHERN Tamil Nadu state has begun the $2 billion (€1.45 billion) giveaway of nearly seven million free laptops to State-aided school and college students as part of a populist election promise made by the newly elected chief minister.
Under the scheme – the first of its kind in the country – J Jayalalithaa, who came to power in May following provincial elections, will distribute some 900,000 laptops in 2011 and the remainder over the remainder of her five-year term.
Speaking on Thursday in Thiruvallur district, some 50km from the state capital Chennai (formerly Madras) at an event that was marked by the distribution of 6,600 shiny laptops and a range of livestock and consumer goods, Ms Jayalalithaa hit out at her critics who dismissed these handouts as an expensive political gimmick.
“The sole aim of this scheme is to make people economically independent and no one should trivialise it,” she said.
Those who knew economics would not demean the schemes as 30 per cent of the beneficiaries under the free cow and goat schemes were poor people, she declared.
With this boost they would “be able to stand on their own feet” within a year or two, she added.
In her manifesto ahead of state polls in April, Ms Jayalalithaa had declared that if her AIADMK or All India Dravidian People’s party came to power she would distribute not only free laptops to students but also cows, goats, electric fans and food mixers.