Assam HSLC students who scored above 75% to get cash award in stead of computer this year

Assam Education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said the government will give cash to the meritorious students of Class-X examination instead of providing computers as “many parts come from China and other countries” and are difficult to source during the coronavirus pandemic.

Addressing a press conference here, Sarma said, the state government has decided to deposit ₹20,000 in the bank account of a student scoring star marks or 75 per cent in High School Leaving Certificate examinations from this year.

“Usually we give a computer to each student getting star marks. As many parts of a computer come from China and other countries and it is not conducive for us to buy it now, we have decided to deposit ₹20,000 to each student in their bank accounts,” he added.

This year, 16,944 students have scored star marks and bank details of 16,648 have already been collected, he said.

Sarma also said that as the government does not install the latest softwares like Microsoft Windows in the computers, so most of the students change it after getting machines.

“We plan to roll out the scheme by depositing the money on September 12. We will need ₹33-34 crore for this scheme,” he added.

The minister also informed that 8,000 Namghars (a place of worship for Vaishnavite followers) will be given ₹2.5 lakh of financial assistance each as part of the Budget announcements, including those from outside the state.

“In the Budget, we had announced to give ₹10 lakh each to 377 religious places like temples, masjids and churches.

For this, we sanctioned ₹37.7 crore today,” he added.

Stating that all schemes will be completed by November 30, Sarma said two special programmes and several infrastructure related projects will be announced next week.