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Madhya Pradesh government to distribute smartphones to meritorious college students on August 8. BJP had in its manifesto for the 2013 Madhya Pradesh assembly elections promised to provide smartphones to meritorious college students.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan presided over the meeting on July 20. It was decided in the meeting that a function will be organised to launch the smartphones distribution scheme. Chouhan will be the chief guest, on the occasion. In the function smartphones will be given to the students of academic session 2014-15. Distribution of smartphones to students of academic session 2015-16 will be organised in September.

Date for distribution of smartphones in the districts where number of students who are eligible to receive smart phones is more than 5,00 will be decided later.

Even the then higher education minister Umashankar Gupta had directed his department to accelerate the process of distributing smartphones to students who took admission in first semester of graduation during academic sessions 2014-15 and 2015-16. These students, however, must have 75% attendance record to qualify for a smartphone gift from the government. However, the decision could not take shape till 2016.

Sources said department calculated that around 4 lakh smart phones would be purchased for students starting from class of 2014-15. According to the higher education department approval for smart phone distribution to hard-working students of government colleges was moved by higher education department on September 9, 2014.

Delay in distribution of smartphones was raised last year in the Madhya Pradesh assembly. A question was raised by Congress MLA from Ganjbasoda constituency Nishank Jain during the winter session of state assembly.