Karnataka government backs out on Laptop promise

Bangalore, April 29: After making loud promises, one more

has backed off in the name of "budget".

Siddaramaiah government has gone back on its budgetary promise to provide free laptops and notepads to 10.5 lakh pre-university students as they did not have "budgetary allocation" for the purpose.

Earlier, Governor H R Bhardwaj had committed that laptops and notepads would be provided to PU students across the state. The Congress had also promised free laptops to PU students in its manifesto. In his budget presented later in April, chief minister Siddramaiah confined the laptop largesse to scheduled caste and tribe students pursuing engineering, medicine, journalism and doctoral studies. The government also promised special laptops to the visually challenged.

Asked about this on Monday, Siddaramaiah said, "We do not propose to implement it this year. We still have four more years. We'll implement our promises in a phased manner within these four years.''

The government has also deferred the implementation of its promise to provide sanitary napkins to girl students.

OneIndia News