The Rajasthan government has chosen Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel in a more than Rs 12,000-crore tender to provide internet access and free smartphones to the women heads of 13.3 million families in the state under the ‘Mukhyamantri Digitial Seva Yojana,’ officials said.
Women heads of families enrolled in the Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme will receive smartphones with internet connectivity for three years under the scheme.
The tender included three telecom operators from the country. While the deal’s modalities have yet to be finalized by an empowered committee of the state government, officials in the know say the distribution of free smartphones will begin in the second week of December.
For the next three years, Jio and Airtel will provide each user with 4G connectivity, 20GB of data per month, and unlimited voice calling.
According to the official cited earlier, the Samsung model chosen is the Galaxy A03 Crore, which is priced at Rs 7,500, while Nokia will offer one of their low-cost, entry-level modals and Reliance Jio will offer a new 4G smartphone not yet available in the market.
