SC students of tech courses to get free laptops

Chandigarh, Aug 13 (UNI) The Haryana Technical Education Department will spend an amount of Rs 3.5 crore for providing laptops free of cost to the Scheduled Caste students pursuing BE, MBA, MCA and B Pharma courses from the technical institutes of the state.

Stating this, Parliamentary Secretary for Technical Education Dillu Ram said the department had also organised special coaching for DET admission-2007 for scheduled castes students and a number of students had been benefited under this scheme.

He said that special diploma courses in the service sector like tours and travel, insurance, banking, retailing and sales and marketing were being introduced from current academic session.

Curriculums of the existing diplomas has been revised as per the need of the industries, he added.

Mr Dillu Ram said that number of diploma institutions have been increased from 53 to 58 in the year 2007-08, besides 20 proposals were in pipeline. He said that seats in the Government Polytechnics have been increased from 4700 to 8000.

To fulfill the 11th plan target of 1.5 lakh technically trained manpower, the department was undertaking large scale capacity expansion in the form of increased intake, introduction of double shifts in the existing Polytechnics and opening of about 14 Polytechnics in public private partnership mode, he added.

He said the state government had also decided to set up art institutions of design, fashion, film and fine arts at common premises in Rohtak from next academic session. Computers and software of all the Government Polytechnics had also been upgraded.

He said the seats had been reserved in the Polytechnics for the toppers of the Government schools.

UNI