Nearly 175,000 impoverished children in the Indian state of the Punjab will receive a free smartphone so they can continue their education remotely.

Many schools in India have been shut since March to slow the spread of the world’s third-largest Covid-19 outbreak.

The Indian Government instructed schools to continue lessons online but this is impossible for much of the nation’s poor.

Just over 10 per cent of Indians still live on less than £1.50 a day and they can’t afford to purchase a smartphone or another device that permits video calling, like a tablet.

Captain Amarinder Singh, the chief minister of the Punjab, had promised to give free smartphones to poor students as part of an election promise in 2017 but the Covid-19 pandemic has meant that he has fast-forwarded his pledge. 

An initial 174,015 students entering class 12 – those aged between 16-18 – in public schools will receive a handset, at a cost of £10.2 million.