Monday, September 22, 2003		Feature

Explain laptop use, Bihar MLAs asked
Imran Khan

LEGISLATORS in Bihar will have to wait a while before they can start tapping away at the personal laptops the government has offered them.

They will have to first explain how they propose to put them to productive use.

Bihar Legislative Assembly Secretary J.P. Pal has asked the legislators to submit a brief report on how exactly they would utilise the laptops. The government had sanctioned Rs15.9 million in March to purchase laptops and printers for its 243 legislators. Each machine is likely to cost Rs1,20,000.

And since many of Bihar’s legislators are school dropouts, know very little English and are computer illiterate, they will get a monthly grant of Rs5,000 to employ an assistant to work the laptops. Bihar is one of India’s least economically and technologically developed states.

Officials in the Finance Department say a committee headed by the Development Commissioner had approved the purchase but said the legislators would have to explain how they proposed to use the laptops.

"The laptops will enable legislators to keep information about their constituencies and development works," said Mohammad Ghaus of the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal. The government has made it clear the legislators would have to surrender the laptops at the end of their terms.

Chief Minister Rabri Devi insists the laptops will be put to good use.Rabri Devi, whose two sons-in-law are IT professionals, had announced last year that the 9,000 village councils in the state would be computerised. She insisted the decision had nothing to do with her sons-in-law.

Rabri Devi’s husband and RJD head Laloo Prasad Yadav has often rubbished IT as "a tool of the elite". IANS