The low-cost Aakash tablet PC will be made completely indigenous and its production base diversified. Talking to reporters in New Delhi, Human Resource Development, HRD, Minister Kapil Sibal said, the government is planning to create eco-system for end to end development of Aakash in India.

The minister said, this will create enormous opportunities for Research and development institutions, developers, electronic production houses. He said the IITs and the ITIs are onboard on development of the device which has so far reached out to a handful of students.

The HRD Ministry has already said that it will require an additional 22 crore units of Aakash and for this, fresh tenders will be issued enabling other companies along with the present manufacturer Datawind to also get a chance. At present, the device is available to students at 1,100 rupees after government subsidy.

AIR correspondent reports,the government plans to involve three more IITs for the Aakash project to make it more indigenous and further lower its price. Apart from IIT Rajasthan, which is spearheading the project, IIT Mumbai, IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur would also be roped in for the project.The speed of the improved device will come at 800 MHz instead of 300 MHz at present.