The Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot) will shortly issue a tender for procuring one lakh desktop computers to be sold to households at a price of around Rs 13,000, according to Dr Santhosh Babu, Managing Director, Elcot.

Called the Household Desktop Scheme, the desktop Personal Computers will have a Linux operating system and there is a plan to use Intel’s Atom Processor, he told reporters on the sidelines of CeTIT 2009, a two-day conference-cum-exhibition on ‘e-governance’ organised by FICCI (TN State Council) along with Elcot.

Unlike a laptop, which is mobile, people want desktop PCs in the house for the entire family to use it. Elcot is in talks with various hardware vendors, including Intel and HCL, on getting the right configuration for the household PC, he said.

Elcot had previously come out with a ‘student laptop’, which was retailed at Rs 31,000. The Corporation had expected to sell one lakh units—the off-take was only 3,000 units. “We do not want to make the same mistake of high cost in the desktop scheme,” Dr Babu said, commenting on that experience.

Inaugurating the seminar, the state IT minister, Dr Poongothai Aladi Aruna, said, her Ministry has sought an assistance of Rs 300 crore from the Union IT Ministry to support two of its e-governance projects in the schools and the social welfare department. The state IT ministry has written to the Union IT ministry to release the funds for creating a ‘comprehensive and robust’ IT framework in schools and in the social welfare department. While the schools will require around Rs 200 crore, the rest will be for the social welfare, she said.

According to state IT secretary, Mr P.W.C. Davidar, once the Assembly session is over the department will inaugurate the 1,000 Rural Common Service Centres that are ready to provide citizen centric services, including government-to-citizen services at the doorsteps of the citizens in an affordable cost. Another 1,000 centres will be ready in the next six months, he said.

Last September, SPEL Semiconductors announced a 5-year investment programme of $250 million. Mr Arun said that the next round of fund raising could be a GDR or a FCCB issue. “The rupee appreciation has forced us to look at automation options as a means of cost reduction,” he said.

Dr. V. Sumantran, Chairman, Defiance Tech and Executive Vice Chairman, Hinduja Automotive Ltd, in his keynote address said there is an obligation and urgency on the part of the government to improve the quality of life in rural areas. This can be done through the use of information technology, which would be a critical enabler. While doing this, the government should also look at some of the emerging technologies, including Web 2.0, he said.