Local laptop manufacturing on cards

The Punjab Government has decided to establish a high-quality laptop manufacturing plant at Sundar Industrial Estate in collaboration with highly reputed international computer hardware companies.

This was revealed by the Punjab Minister for Education Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan while presiding over a briefing session in the Higher Education Department on Thursday. The measure, Khan said, would help facilitate the distribution of laptops to brilliant students in the province at a larger scale.

The minister said that there is an indigenous demand of 80,000 laptops every year for free distribution amongst the intelligent students of various private and public sector universities in the province. There is ample demand from federally administered universities as well, he added.

“We will establish our own brand of laptops which will be a pride for our younger generation. We will not compromise on technical quality, and the Punjab government will offer a chunk of land at a concession rate to well-reputed companies for the installation of the proposed assembling plant,” he said.

Khan said that this step will prove to be a milestone in the process of transferring the latest technology to Pakistan. “We will be able to export laptops of our brand to Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia in time,” he added.

It was revealed at the briefing session that 100,000 laptops were procured from DELL this year, out of which 92,000 were distributed on a merit basis to students. The other 8,000 laptops are still present in the stock. 72,000 laptops are to be procured for the next session of fresh graduates in January 2014. The minister has constituted a special committee for the procurement and distribution of laptops in the coming year.