Would you like to acquire a sufficiently high end brand new laptop sporting upto 1 GB memory (RAM), an Intel dual core processor, 120 GB hard disk et al manufactured by a company like Dell or Lenovo for just around 60 % of its street price ? Well you could, provided you are living in the Indian state of TamilNadu and more importantly you are a bona fide student enrolled in a school or college in TamilNadu.
The scheme is the brain child of Electronics Corporation of TamilNadu Limited (ELCOT). ELCOT is a wholly owned Government of TamilNadu Undertaking, registered under the Indian Companies Act(1956). It is the nodal agency for Information and Communication Technology projects for the Government of TamilNadu.
Now this news coming from TamilNadu, I am not the least surprised. TamilNadu government (doesn't matter which political party is ruling) are famous for rolling out people friendly schemes. To list a couple of them which come to my mind, there is
- The Free bicycle scheme for all students studying in 12th standard
- Distributing 20 KG rice per month for just Indian Rupees 2/KG which in US dollars is equivalent to 5 cents per KG of rice.
- Distributing Free Colour television sets [Link]
- And now high end branded laptops at a hefty discount. Wow ... make that double Wow.
So people in TamilNadu are getting a fair deal from their government as far as the number of free schemes are considered. Perhaps the the respective state governments in the rest of India should take a leaf from the government of TamilNadu and roll out such people friendly schemes. For example, we could have a scheme of providing $25 computer desktops free of cost for all school students on the lines of the $100 laptop project (er... is it still called the $100 laptop?). But I digress here.
Coming back to our story, ELCOT purchases these laptops at their market price of $1100 each (Indian Rupees 44000) and then is selling it at a massively subsidized discount rate of less than $800 (Indian Rupees 29000 to 32000). Additionally you also get $140 worth extras like a 3 year international customer carry in warranty, an adapter and a carry case. The discounted laptops are available only to the students living in TamilNadu and enrolled in a government recognized school or college there.
Guess what the laptops will be running ? Full marks to you if you guessed it right. It will be running what else but Linux of course. The laptops will be loaded with OpenSuSE Linux and will be fully Linux compliant with all the Linux device drivers made available at their website. Do check out the specifications of the laptops on offer. And here is a list of the software pre-installed on each laptop.I bet you will surely be tempted to accept domicile in TamilNadu and then enroll your children in a school or college there just to lay your hands on the laptops at such a bargain price.
