Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav Monday gave laptops free of cost to over 8,000 students of Gautambuddh Nagar and Ghaziabad districts.
The aim behind implementing the scheme is to bridge the gap between urban and rural students so that those residing in villages can make use of technology and gain high level of knowledge, he said on the occasion.
While addressing the students at Kamala Nehru Nagar ground in Ghaziabad, the chief minister said the laptops would help them in this age of competition.
The name of the state would shine on the national stage when the children progress with the support of the laptops, he added.
As many as 8,074 beneficiaries were given the computers.
At the same event, his cabinet colleague Azam Khan took a potshot at Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati saying, "Girls become anything but don't become Mayawati. Mayawati's government had used the money of the state's citizens to sculpt elephants made out of stone."
Meanwhile, over 100 Congress workers protested the chief minister's visit to Ghaziabad and were lathicharged for blocking his route in Kavinagar area, official sources said in Lucknow.
A group of girl students of a college in Chandauli also blocked traffic on Varanasi-Mughalsarai GT road for over an hour, protesting the non-inclusion of their names in the laptop distribution programme.
