Datawind, the company behind world’s cheapest tablet, Aakash, will soon be launching super budget smartphones with 1 year free basic internet in India. These smartphones will cost INR 3000 (under $50).

“We are in talks with a private operator to launch mobile phones with free basic Internet services for one year to start with. It should cost around Rs. 3,000 a unit. We have raised CAD 30 million (about Rs. 150 crores) through our public offer and all that is earmarked for this project,” said Datawind Founder and CEO Suneet Singh Tuli.

The mobile device sales trend shows that 76% of users in India buy phones priced below INR 4,000, and 60% buy mobiles that costs less than INR 2,000.

“Many of these customers are not subscribers of Internet services. We want to tap the first time Internet users category and grow it gradually,” said Suneet Singh Tuli.

The company has raised about INR 150 crore for the project and has asked the partnering operator to bill Datawind for the internet that customers will access from Datawind’s server.

via NDTV