Free laptops for Elders, LS MPs to pay for them

After laptops and desk-tops, MPs are now getting pocket computers to get rid of cumbersome paper work. However, the latest gadget comes at o...

After laptops and desk-tops, MPs are now getting pocket computers to get rid of cumbersome paper work. However, the latest gadget comes at one-third its price at Rs 8,000 for a Lok Sabha MP while 100 Rajya Sabha members have already walked away with it as a free gifts. These compaq APQ Pocket PC H3900 were pocketed by the MPs within an hour of the opening of the counter.

The pocket computer comes as a more user-friendly gadget — eliminates keyboard and tricky commands while doubling up as tape recorder. But the only language it knows is English and some of our MPs would not know it. However, the ten-year-old drive to make Parlimentarians computer savvy, launched by then LS Speaker Shiv Raj Patil, has yielded some interesting facts. Sources said Rajya Sabha members are more Net savvy than their Lok Sabha peers. ‘‘In the Rajya Sabha at present about 200 members are regularly using the Net,’’ sources told The Indian Express.

That surely can’t still be the reason for giving away pocket computers to the ‘elders.’ Although no official word is out, sources said the Lok Sabha members are supposed to pay equivalent of the depreciated cost of the device as the House has only two more years to go. The amount therefore has been taken in advance since ‘‘making MPs buy these gadgets at a depreciated cost at the end of their terms has been a difficult task in the past.’’ MPs are entitled to either a laptop or a desktop, costing Rs 1.25 lakh and Rs 80,000 respectively, which they can buy at a depreciated cost at the end of their term.

Officials who have been helping MPs learn computers have interesting memories of their ‘students’. For instance, they say, Maneka Gandhi initially resisted computers but eventually she was heavily into it; L.K. Advani took a five-day crash course in computer usage; Ram Naik first got his daughter, Vishakha, trained so he could learn from her; Narsimha Rao asked for an ‘‘external mouse’’.