TN Government to sell desktops, laptops

R Jai Krishna

Chennai

September 18th, 2007

In a bid to increase PC penetration in the state, the Tamil Nadu Government
has forayed into selling of desktops and laptops. For this purpose, the State
Government has assigned Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) for
handling the sales.

Talking to CyberMedia News on the sidelines of Connect 2007, C Umashankar, MD
of ELCOT, said, "We will be selling desktops, laptops, printers and other
peripherals at lesser cost which will include all taxes and other costs. We are
targeting to offer the systems for students, employees of State and Center
Governments, army and personnel. These systems will be preloaded with
open-source software." He further added, "The state IT implementing
agency had tied-up with Original Equipment Manufacturers' for this unique
initiative."

Umashankar informed that ELCOT had tied-up with companies such as Dell,
Lenovo for procurement of desktops and laptop computers. "ELCOT does not
tend to gain revenue but wants to play a relevant role in the state for PC
penetration. We are very focused on this initiative," Umashankar said.