Poll-bound Rajasthan distributes smartphones for women

Rasooli Bibi, aged 70-80, received a smartphone under the Indira Gandhi Smartphone scheme, launched by Rajasthan's CM. It comes with free calls & data, & is available in nine models. For some, it's their first phone, for others, sole ownership. At camps, women line up, register and get phones.

Rasooli Bibi could be anywhere between 70 and 80-years-old; she cannot recall her age. “You can guess by counting the wrinkles on my face,” she says. As she steps out of a government distribution camp with a newly issued smartphone box in her hand, a neighbour teasingly asks what she plans to do with the device, given her failing eyesight. “You keep quiet,” she says, flashing a toothless smile and strutting out, her clouded eyes sparkling with joy. 

Ms. Bibi is among the seven lakh women (as on August 24) who have recieved smartphones in election-bound Rajasthan under the Indira Gandhi Smartphone scheme, which was launched by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on August 10. In the scheme’s first phase, the State’s Congress government plans to distribute 40 lakh smartphones to three categories of beneficiaries: those who receive pensions for widows, girl students, and women heads of families who have completed 100 days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme.

Ms. Bibi’s phone has a new sim card, which comes loaded with free unlimited calls for nine months and 2 GB of mobile data. On paper, the smartphones are available in nine models that the beneficiaries can select from, but in reality, the choice is limited by the stock available at the distribution camp. 

For each woman, the phone holds a different value. For some, it is the first smartphone in the family, which often translates into better access to education material available online for their children. For others, it is the second or even third phone in the family, which means that these women now have sole ownership of phone which they do not have to share with their husbands, brothers or children. 

On a muggy August morning, the government school in Ramgarh — which is doubling up as one of the scheme’s 456 distribution camps — is a virtual warzone. The women line up, their bodies squished together, unwilling to concede even a centimetre of space. The queue snakes through three dimly lit rooms, where the women must register themselves, verify their documents, and finally get their new phones.  

Guddi, who goes by her first name, belongs to the Meena community, which falls under the Scheduled Tribe category in Rajasthan. She was married to a farmer who committed suicide in 2020, consuming pesticide after successive onion crops failed.

Ms. Guddi and her four children now live with her late husband’s family. Every time she has to make a call, she has to borrow her brother-in-law’s phone. “That will change today, I will get my own phone. I heard they are providing internet too, which means my kids will be able to attend online classes, if it ever switches back to it,” she says, smiling under her long ghunghat (veil).