Akhilesh's pre-poll free laptops up for sale

ANANYA SENGUPTA

Akhilesh gifts a laptop to a student in Ghaziabad on Monday New Delhi, June 6: Students in Uttar Pradesh have turned pre-election freebies into neat profit-making ventures by selling them in the open market. On Monday, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had distributed over 8,000 free laptops to first-year students of select government colleges in Ghaziabad and Noida, in what was seen as jumpstarting the campaign for the 2014 general elections. Akhilesh had then said the laptops "would help students in this age of competition". However, many students rushed to the market within hours of getting the laptops, approaching shopkeepers with offers to sell them, said sources. The Telegraph managed to convince two students, one of whom had sold his laptop, and another who had attempted to do so, to explain why they took the freebie to the open market. "I already have a laptop, so didn't need this one. I sold mine for Rs 7,000 to a senior on the very day I got it," said a first-year student. Another student, who had decided to wait for a better price, said she wasn't well-off to afford an Internet connection. "It would have been great if the laptops had come with an Internet connection as well. I cannot afford to install one and also pay the Internet bills," she said Computer dealers and spare parts shop owners at Noida's Atta Market confirmed they had been approached by students to sell the laptops that were given to them by the government. "You know as soon as you power on the computer that it's a government freebie as the chief minister and his father stare back at you from the screen. Some students came to me with the laptop and asked me to buy one for Rs 5,000. I didn't buy it, but asked them to keep one at the shop so that I could take a look at its configuration," said a shopkeeper at Atta Market. The HP laptops were bought by the Uttar Pradesh government for Rs 19,058 a piece. Owners and employees of electronic goods showroom told this newspaper the laptops distributed by the chief minister was the best in this price range. With the same specifications, a Dell laptop would cost around Rs 23,000 and one from Sony would be around Rs 29,000. "Yes, we were told today that the laptops that Akhileshji distributed had been sold by some students. We are very saddened by this because the idea behind giving the laptops was to bridge the gap between urban and rural students. We wanted them to read and study by using the laptops. It wasn't for making profit," said Anurag Dixit, the national secretary of Akhilesh's Samajwadi Party. "However, once we have given the laptops, it's the property of the students. What they do with it, we can't control. I think the mindsets of both students and parents need to change, no amount of policing can help. However, the administration has taken notice of this, and hopefully this will not happen again," said Dixit, who was present at the programme on May 3 when the laptops were distributed by the chief minister. While the authorities of the colleges in which the laptops were distributed refused to come on record about their students' money-making ventures, they said an inquiry has been ordered and students have been asked to bring back the laptops to their colleges for inspection.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130607/jsp/nation/story_16981061.jsp#.UbHtutKBlA0