24-05-2025
TN floats tender for mid-spec laptops to give students free
Chennai: The state govt has floated an international tender to procure 10 lakh laptops to distribute free to students.
The govt had earlier announced that 20 lakh laptops will be provided to college students over two years.
Following a recent meeting with deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, the Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) floated tenders on Friday to procure 10 lakh mid-spec laptops in the first phase.
Officials said each laptop will be procured at a cost of about 20,000, with 2,000 crore in this budget and equal funding expected in the next budget.
The laptops specified generally cost between 30,000 and 35,000 in the market.
Officials with ELCOT said the contractor must provide at least one lakh laptops for the tenders to be valid.
The specifications mandate firms to supply laptops with any processor equal to or above Intel Core I3 or AMD Ryzen, with a minimum RAM of eight gigabytes.
The laptops shall be 14 inches or 15.6 inches, and they must have at least one USB C type port (for fast file transfers).
"In the past, the govt provided the most basic version of Pentium laptops with only dual-core processors and 2GB RAM.
The ones given now are the latest generation four-core processors with eight GB RAM.
"This will help students edit videos and also play 4K videos on the laptop without issues. We are giving higher RAM to ensure it stays fast for many years," said the official.
The laptops will also have modern and faster solid-state drive hard drives and a 720p HD video camera.
The students will also get a free one-year subscription to Microsoft Office 365, including Word, Excel, and Teams.
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