The Indian government is seeking a manufacturer for its solar-powered touchscreen tablet, which it says it can produce for as low as $35.

 

Indian authorities hope to provide the Linux-based device to students from next year.

 

If it goes into production, the device will join other low-cost Indian innovations such as the $2,000 Nano car, the $16 water purifier and the $2,000 open-heart surgery, Associated Press reports. 

The solar power option, which is critical for energy-poor rural India and other add-ons cost extra.

 

“This is our answer to MIT's $100 computer,” human resource development minister Kapil Sibal told the Economic Times.

 

“This is real, tangible and we will take it forward,” Kapil Sibal, minister for human resource development, said at a press conference in New Delhi. The touchscreen tablet will cost about $35, or 1,500 rupees, when it hits markets by early 2011.

 

Nicholas Negroponte from the MIT’s Media Lab has been pursuing the $100 laptop for children in the developing world for five years. His One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) scheme is shipping devices at below $200 and he has foreshadowed a basic tablet for $99.

 

Sibal said the tablet was developed by students and professors at Indian universities after receiving only mild interest from hardware manufacturers. He hopes to get the cost down to $10 eventually.

 

A ministry spokesperson said that instead of a hard disk the tablet uses a memory card, while the tablet design cut hardware costs and the use of open-source software reduced software costs.

 

Several global manufacturers have shown interest in making the low-cost device, but no deals had been finalized, the spokesperson said.

 

The government plans to subsidize the cost of the tablet for its students, which would bring the retail price down to around $20.