Minister Duraimurugan distributes free laptops for students at Katpadi

Minister for Water Resources Duraimurugan distributed free laptops for 145 government college students in the first phase under ‘Ulagam Ungal Kaiyil (The world is in your hands)’ scheme, which was launched by Chief Minister M.K Stalin on January 5, at a function in Katpadi in Vellore on Saturday.

Accompanied by Collector V.R. Subbulaxmi, Mr. Duraimurugan, who is also Katpadi MLA, said that the Dravidian model of governance has introduced several welfare schemes for all sections of the society since it assumed office in mid-2021. The free laptop provided by the State government will help government students especially in rural and tribal areas . “Rural students including girls can update themselves on current events that happen around the world. It will also help them to sharpen their digital skills,” he said.

District officials said that laptops from brands such as Dell, Acer, and HP would be provided to students. The laptops are powered with Intel i3/AMD Ryzen 3 Processor, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD (Solid-State Drives), Windows 11 Home Strategic and BOSS Linux OS and MS Office 365. Also, a six-month free subscription for Perplexity Pro AI platform is provided. Officials said that students can make use of the laptop in various fields including information technology (IT), software development, digital marketing, coding, graphic designing, web designing, freelancing, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Among districts, Tiruvannamalai has the highest number of 5,102 beneficiaries, followed by Vellore (3,124 students), Ranipet (2,543 students), and Tirupattur (1,600 students). Most of the beneficiaries are final year students of government arts and science colleges as free laptops will help them become entrepreneurs once they complete graduation, officials said.