Laptops too costly,Badal govt prefers UP tablets

The govt is also to decide on unemployment allowance,another promise picked from Akhilesh Yadavs manifesto.

It is laptops versus tablets once again. After promising laptops to Class XI and XII students with data cards in its poll manifesto against subsidy on tablets promised by the Congress,the Punjab government is finding the latter more economical and useful.

In austerity mode after return to power in two months,the Parkash Singh Badal regime has pruned VIP security,vehicles of ministers and asked the cabinet to voluntarily forego 10 per cent of monthly allowance the government also wants to blunt the charge of Leader of Opposition Sunil Jakhar,who has said that the Congress will counter the government in the Assembly if it does not deliver after promising voters the moon. To begin with,Badal wants to give away laptops and unemployment allowance,the two main attractions of the ruling SADs manifesto.

The finance department has pegged the cost of providing laptops to three lakh students in Classes XI and XII to Rs 420 crore,pricing each laptop at Rs 14,000,as provided by the Tamil Nadu government. But to curtail the outgo on this account for new batch of Class XI students every year,the government is thinking of going the Uttar Pradesh way by giving away more useful and economical tablets on lines of Akhilesh Yadavs Samajwadi Party each costing Rs 7,000.

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If bought on bulk,the tablets will cost Rs 210 crore for three lakh students and laptops Rs 420 crore. The cost difference is double. It has also been seen that students find tablets more useful than laptops. Owing to he absence of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal,a decision in this regard has not been taken so far, sources in the finance department said.

The government is also to decide on unemployment allowance,another promise picked from Yadavs manifesto,before the budget is presented on Wednesday. This allowance too will come with a rider only graduates sitting at home without employment are entitled to Rs 1,000 per month to increase their employability by acquiring vocational skills.

The total number of such graduates in Punjab,according to government estimates,is a mere 3,000. The economic survey puts the figure of those enrolled in employment exchanges of the state to over 3.5 lakh.

The department contends that it cannot go by the figure of employment exchanges,as youth with diplomas and vocational training too are enrolled while the manifesto spoke of only unemployed graduates.

But states fiscal health may not permit more.

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While free gas connections to over 9 lakh BPL families is estimated to cost Rs 1,000 per family,the cost of many other promises such as five-marla plots to landless poor and provident fund to farmers is yet to be worked out.

ARMs in budget

For meeting its growing revenue expenditure,some additional resource mobilisation proposals are likely be a part of the budget to be presented by the ruling SAD-BJP combine on June 20.

Though the preceding years revenue deficit was projected at Rs 3,379 crore,it had shot up to Rs 6,200 crore in the revised estimates.