Bangalore: Aakash, the world’s cheapest tablet is beginning to face heat with its competitors (such as Ubislate and tablets from companies like HCL) slowly contending for the same Indian marketplace.

The Indian Government’s aim to launch a fully indigenous tablet has seen the launch of Aakash 2, but BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited—the government telecom company) associated with Pantel (an Indian company based in Noida) to produce tablets with better specs than the Aakash tablet. Pantel’s cheapest tablet (named Penta Tpad IS 701r) is priced within the margin of 500 rupees more than Aakash, thus proving to a worthy competitor in terms of cost—it comes at Rs 3,499.

BSNL has also joined with the Indian company to bring out two other tablets at higher cost—the Penta Tpad_ws704c is priced at Rs 10,999 and Penta Tpad WS802C is priced at Rs 12,500. They come with added features such as a SIM slot for 3G/2G connectivity, and GPS.

The delivery of the tablets is said to be made available after March 5, and the tablets will be available in retail stores and BSNL according to a report on Yahoo News.

Virendra Singh, the managing director of Pantel Technologies told The Mobile Indian “We have received more than one lakh pre booking orders over phone and online for the three tablets which we have launched in association with BSNL.” He also added that Pantel got an order for two lakh tablets from Sahara India apart from consumer-ordered devices.

Do you think the BSNL tablets will affect Aakash sales?