This article communicates thermal performance of a low cost solar parabolic dish collector The parabolic dish collector is developed from low cost technology and is tested in the outdoors on a sunny day by measuring stagnation temperature on the flat absorber The absorber, made of aluminum alloys and coated with black paint, is placed on the focal receiver The calculated overall heat transfer co-efficient varies from 130 to 180 W/m(2) K for the actual climate conditions at Tiruchirappalli, India. The thermal efficiency of the thermal collector is found to be 60% and the cost is minimized to half the cost of a collector that is available in the market with the same specifications.