MLAs do not know what to do with laptops

Amitabh Shukla

New Delhi, March 11

All the 70 MLA of Delhi have got a brand new laptop. However, most of them do not know what to do with it. While a majority of them do not how to operate it, for the others it would be another "showpiece" in their offices or drawing rooms.

"I do not know how to operate it and have not taken it as yet," admitted a frank Rama Kant Goswami, MLA from Patel Nagar and Chief Whip of the Congress. He said the machine is hardly of any use to him. Sadar Bazar MLA Rajesh Jain said that if they start working on laptops and neglect the issues of water and power in their constituencies, the voters would throw them out next time.

MLA from Bhalswa-Jehangirpuri, Jile Singh Chauhan, however, claimed that he know how to operate the system. "I have already used it for drafting a letter to the Congress President demanding full statehood for Delhi," he said. Chauhan claimed that the laptop was of great help to them in drafting letters and getting work for the constituencies done.

The Delhi government had given laptop to the legislators in the last term of the assembly too. While the first time MLAs got the machine just by flashing their IDs, signing a form and submitting a photograph, all those who got the largesse in the last term had to submit the old laptops to get the brand new ones. A Congress MLA said the staff giving the laptops was asking for proof that they were indeed MLAs. "This is very humiliating and I refuse to accept it," he said.

The laptops have been manufactured by IBM and are powered by Pentium IV. The MLAs are getting a printer along with the laptops. The cost of one such machine is Rs 73 thousand.

All the six ministers and the Chief Minister too would get the laptops. One of the ministers sent his PA to get the computer. "Even if I don't get time to use it, somebody in my family will use it," he said. (2005)