The Tamil Nadu government has announced that it will provide free 2GB per day data cards to college students in the state between January and April. With the students around the planet turning to online education due to the pandemic, the government said that it was important for students to have access to the internet which is why it had decided to provide free data cards.

In a notice, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said that 9,69,047 students would get free 2GB data cards, so all students can benefit from online classes and no one would lose out on the opportunity.

“Due to late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, there was in increase in the number of students joining higher education. The numbers spiked from 32 per cent to 49 per cent. Also, during her times, students were given free laptops so that they could understand technology better. Now students can use the laptops and the data cards to attend the classes,” the notice said.

Palaniswami said the data cards will be issued to students from government and government assisted colleges by the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd. (Elcot), a state government undertaking.