Government set to abolish the laptop-scheme

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government has decided to put an end to the laptop scheme initiated by the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on May 23, 2014.

Ever since the new government came into power and Prime Minister Imran Khan took control of the office, there have been several changes in the administration of the government. Starting from reducing the Prime Minister’s personal expenses (austerity drive) to government’s decision of increasing taxes, it seems that the new government has been really busy in implementing new changes in the age-old set-up.

The cancellation of this scheme does not come as a big surprise as the current Prime Minister, Imran Khan has always vocal against this scheme ever since its inception. According to him, this was merely another stunt for maintaining PML-N’s vote bank while ignoring the actual issue in Punjab and Pakistan. Fawad Chaudhry, the Information Minister said that all such programs by the previous government will be abolished barring the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP).

The Prime Minister’s laptop scheme (or Prime Minister’s National laptop scheme) was an initiative taken by the PML-N government in the budget speech of the Fiscal year 2013-14. The scheme was launched to facilitate the youth and to provide laptops to those students who were deserving. The laptop distribution took place every year in public and semi-public educational institutes of Pakistan. A total number of 300,000 laptops have been distributed across different parts of Punjab and Kashmir. However, with the cancellation of the laptop scheme, students will not be able to avail this opportunity anymore.