India's Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) says that it plans to trump the OLPC project by developing its own significantly cheaper laptop. The concept is already in the planning stages, according to the Times of India, as the MHRD is considering two designs and has received some interest from Indian chip manufacturer Semiconductor Complex.

The two designs being considered were crafted by an engineering student from the Vellore Institute of Technology and a researcher from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. The MHRD is not ready to release the designs to the public just yet because of intellectual property concerns voiced by the designers, but the Ministry has stated that their estimated cost for the laptop is currently sitting at $47. However, the Ministry hopes that costs will go down even more once they start mass-manufacturing the laptops. "The cost is encouraging and we are hopeful it would come down to $10," an official from the Ministry told the Times of India. "We would also look into the possibility of some Indian company manufacturing the parts."

It doesn't take an engineer to realize that $10 per laptop will be a very ambitious project indeed. The current (and final) iteration of MIT's OLPC stands at $176, 76 percent higher than originally estimated. The primary reason for the cost increase was hardware upgrades, with the machine now sporting a 433MHz AMD Geode processor, 256MB of RAM, 1GB of Flash storage, three USB ports, 802.11b/g, and an innovative dual-mode display.

Can India do it? The inner philanthropist hopes so, but the realist who buys technology says, "No way." Why? Component prices are simply too high. The screen for the XO laptop, which is probably the single most innovative thing OLPC has to offer, was estimated to cost $28 per unit, in volume, by Merrill Lynch. OLPC has said that the complete motherboard/CPU package will cost roughly $75, and based on the Merrill Lynch estimates, it looks as though a third of that cost will be for the CPU alone. In other words, the CPU itself, the motherboard, the screen, the NAND flash storage, and the RAM... each of these costs more than $10 to manufacture for inclusion in the OLPC. India's $10 price hopes appear to be nothing more than pure fantasy.

Change of heart? 

India initially rejected an offer to be included on the OLPC project last summer. One of the concerns from the MHRD was the cost of the laptops—the ministry stated that the money could be put to better use in primary and secondary education. Oddly, financial concerns took a back seat to a long list of fears about how the program might impact everything from learning to health. "India must not allow itself to be used for experimentation with children in this area," the ministry stated.

The MHRD seemed to be mystified as to why 6- to 12-year-olds might even need to use a laptop and were confused as to why no developed country had been chosen for the OLPC project yet. "Both physical and psychological effects of children's intensive exposure to the computer implicit in OLPC are worrisome, to say the least," the Ministry stated. "Health problems of our rural children are well-known; personalized intensity of computer use could easily exacerbate some of these problems, especially those related to eyesight and the back."

With the MHRD's new, ambitious plans to develop a $10 laptop for widespread production in India, it's clear that the ministry has apparently changed their minds on the health issue, or perhaps it was never a real concern. Whether the $10 laptop will actually be developed is another story, as the MHRD will likely be faced with design and budget issues.

The MHRD plans to hold a meeting later this month in Bangalore to discuss the designs and invite more suggestions, although the Times' sources say that the laptop will likely not come to fruition for another two years at least. "We do not want to rush into it. Many issues remain to be resolved like royalty to the designer after the design is patented. Prototyping would also take time. We would even conduct destructive testing and create a proper maintenance network," said the official.