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HCL Technologies Ltd will help MHRD manufacture 100000 35$ laptops and roll them out to students. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Rajasthan will carry out intensive laboratory and field tests across the country using the devices. If the laptops pass the field tests, the government will procure 1 million units in the first phase, and make them available to undergraduate and postgraduate students across the country. There are 12.4 million higher education students in India. The report of trials prepared for the ministry, will also act as the base for the scaling up of production of such low-cost computing device in future. MHRD plans to make these low cost tablets available to university-level students from the second half of next year.

Some Insights

For a change, let us not criticize our government agencies and appreciate their work. The work towards rolling out 35$ laptops has been very swift till date. With the current rate of progress, I am sure that these laptops will be available to the university students within the targeted time frame. Partnering with HCL, MHRD has clearly stated that these laptops can be mass produced and distributed at this cost and is not something to be restricted to the IIT labs (as was being speculated by some critics). This would be the government’s first tangible success towards its goal of providing One Laptop Per Child.

Do you think the $35 laptop will be available as per schedule?

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