Free mobile handsets have been distributed to villagers at Phagi in Ajmer district in Rajasthan by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).

Around 1000 mobile phones with SIM cards have been given to the villagers. BSNL has incurred an expenditure of 12.85 lakh to implement this noble task.

The main reason behind this scheme is to include these villagers in to the majority of the society and bring people aware of telecom services who were so far deprived of these facilities because of poverty. All recipients belong to BPL families.

However, this scheme has faced lots of criticism because as per analysts poor people need food grains, clean drinking water and other basic amenities instead of mobile handsets but despite of these criticisms, BSNL has decided to extend this scheme to other states of the country like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu etc in future.