IN a welcome move, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has announced a free laptop scheme for students in the province, pledging to match the percentage of laptop recipients in Punjab.
He said if Punjab provides laptops to a certain percentage of students, KP is ready to do the same, urging the Punjab’s government to reciprocate by offering free health insurance cards similar to those provided in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The CM also took credit for increasing provincial revenues, achieving a surplus in budget and pledged financial support for underprivileged brides.
One must appreciate the Chief Minister for emulating a scheme that is benefitting a number of students in Punjab as use of modern gadgets has become part and parcel of learning and education.
In our socio-economic environment, not all families can afford to procure one or more laptops for their children and as a consequence even intelligent students belonging to poor families cannot excel in studies.
It is good that the KP Chief Minister has realized the significance of the laptop scheme in Punjab, which was a source of heart-burning for students in other provinces and decided to launch it in his province as well.
This is in sharp contrast to the traditional approach of opposing even good initiatives of the rival parties or governments as we witnessed in the case of ‘Sasti Roti’, ‘Metro Bus’ and even motorways, which were derided by opponents despite the fact that these provided massive relief as well as decent and affordable travel facilities to the general public.
Innovation is not unique to one government or party as successive federal and provincial governments launched a number of schemes and projects aimed at promoting welfare of the people but most of them were discarded midway by the successor governments/parties only because they were initiated by their rivals.
Apart from other consequences of such a faulty approach, this also amounted to wastage of scarce national resources and denial of benefits to people on a sustainable basis.
There is absolutely no shame if a good scheme devised by one government and implemented successfully is copied by another government.
Hats off to the KP Chief Minister for adopting a non-traditional approach in promoting welfare of the students and we hope this will prove to be a beginning of a process for healthy competition in governance.
All innovative and popular schemes launched by one province should be studied, improved and adopted by others for the benefit of people at large or special groups in all parts of the country.
