Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday, July 28, said that his government received the first batch of 50,000 smartphones which will be distributed among girl students of classes 11 and 12. The CM added that priority will be given to those who do not have smartphones so that it could help them during COVID crisis

Free smartphones with one year free data and calling for youth was a pre-poll promise of the Congress party, in its manifesto for the 2017 state polls. In 2019, it had decided to start with school students, but then kept missing the deadline.

The CM informed about the smartphones reaching the state during a video conference with Punjab Youth Congress president Birender Dhillon and his team.

The phones are manufactured by Lava, which was the first company to announce to shift base to India after tension between India and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, amid India-China border tensions, the CM said that the company has no connection with China.

‘The Chief Minister said the first batch of 50,000 smartphones had arrived from the company, which had now clarified that it had no connection with China,’ an official release quoting the CM said.

In the wake of tensions between the two countries, the CM, on June 29, had said, ‘We will check what is China’s involvement in this (company) and to what extent. And then we will take a decision.’

The CM had also asked the BJP-led Centre to return donations by several Chinese firms to the PM-CARES Fund.

Meanwhile, the state government has fulfilled 435 of the 562 promises listed in the 2017 manifesto and was well on track to implement the rest in the current term, the CM said, according to The Indian Express.

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