UP's laptop scheme to give jobs to 2000 hardware engineers

    LUCKNOW: Close to 2000 engineers will get a job under UP government's endeavour to distribute  laptops to students in the state. The government, which cleared the rules for procurement of laptops earlier this week, is expected to distribute some 25000 laptops in the first phase stating sometime next month. Sources in the government said that a pre condition for awarding of contract to company to supply bulk order of laptop is to set up service centers in important tehsils. As a part of the same, 331 service centers are to come up. Each service centre is expected to appoint five engineers. And to run these centers the company will need around 2000 engineers. It has been decided that the contract would be awarded to  Hewlett Packard and the memorandum of understanding would be signed very soon. Meanwhile, secretary, secondary education department, Parth Sarthi Sen Sharma has asked the district magistrates to furnish information needed to roll out the scheme. the points include availability of warehouses to store the laptops at tehsil level among others. The laptop scheme is a flagship programme of the Akhilesh government and the  Samajwadi Party had promised to distribute laptops to youth in their poll manifesto. Source: TOI