Datawind, the Britain-based company that produces the low-cost Aakash tablet, has proposed to provide the next version of the tablet to the Indian government for ₹2,500 a unit.
The company reveled that it is ready to sell the higher version of Aakash tablet for the price suggested by the Indian government team. According to reports, the Aakash team is considering the proposal seriously.
"As per my information, the committee on Aakash tablets is looking to higher version of the device at ₹2,500 a piece and we are ready to match the price on order for every 10 lakh units," said Suneet Singh Tuli, Datawind CEO, reported PTI.
Datawind had recently completed the supply of one lakh units of Aakash tablets to IIT Bombay. Earlier there were reports that the company had delayed the shipment of the tablets over quality issues.
"The deadline to finish supplies of Aakash tablet is around June 6 under the tender clause. We have done it by May 1 so we have complied with the norms," Singh said when asked about the delay in supply of tablet.
While announcing the project completion last week, the company said that it has shipped 74,700 units of Aakash 2 tablets to Noida and IIT-Bombay and the rest 25,300 units of tablets shipment is underway. The company, which is part of the Indian government's initiative to link the nation's 25,000 colleges and 400 universities to an e-learning programme, had won the deal for receiving one lakhs units of Akash tablet in 2011. Since then DataWind has been part of the project.
In another piece of news, Datawind is rumoured to be testing an affordable LTE phablet for the Indian smartphone market. Datawind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli confirmed that they are prepping a 10-inch tablet with voice calling feature. The device will debut in June and is likely to be priced around ₹5000.
