India's first indigenous low cost tablet in trouble
By Madiha Jawed
India's first indigenous low cost tablet - Aakash is yet again facing problems after complaints of poor performance and hiccups rolling out a pilot model. And to overcome this problem, companies would now be invited to bid again and remodel this $35 computer.
The Aakash tablet is an achievement of Indian frugal engineering created to end the digital divide in a country where the use of internet is quite significant. This locally assembled machine was priced around Rs.2500 and was to be sold to the students by the government for Rs. 1700. But on the contrary, only 10,000 units have been distributed since October.
A small London-registered company, DataWind developed the tablet in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology. The relationship between the two turned bitter following the complaints by test users that the processor was too slow, the battery life short and the resistive touch screen is hard to use.
DataWind alleged that the changed the specifications late last year and now required a device that could cater to the U.S. military durability requirement for the same price.
DataWind CEO Suneet Singh said "Among other things that requires the device to take 4 inches an hour of sustained rain. He added "We objected to it and the project has been on hold since then, we are working with the ministry to get that resolved." However, Indian representatives whined that DataWind began selling the devices commercially, before filling the full order.
"While we had every intention of having delivered the full 100,000 many months back, we were inhibited from performing. Due to the non-payment and ridiculous test protocols, we decided to start supplying other customers while these issues were being resolved." Mr. Singh said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. (Read complete story)
The Aakash targeted the university students for digital learning via a government platform that distributes electronic books and courses. India's HRD ministry has decided to distribute these low cost tablets by itself and keep the IIT out of its procurement and distribution.
Public sector enterprises like Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) and Bharat Electrical Limited (BEL) and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) will now produce and distribute a million tablets to college students across India.
The plan is to dole out 220 million Aakash tablets to college students in the next five years to bridge the e-literacy gap. The distribution has been a challenge since the beginning. IIT Jodhpur has not been able to distribute even a single table to college students, other than 650 given for testing to IIT students.
The IIT rejected most of the tablets given by Montreal based DataWind on the grounds of poor quality. The IIT, Jodhpur, officials told HT that the tablets provided by the company failed to test to meet the rigid Indian conditions.
The ministry then decided not to procure any tablet from DataWind. The company, however, said it has not been informed about any such decision and denied the claims on quality saying the tablet met all the conditions required to run in normal conditions.
Dejected with the internal strife between DataWind and IIT Jodhpur, the ministry decided to give the job of finalizing the specifications of second version of Aakash to IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay. (Read more)
The improved and upgraded version of world's cheapest computing device will be available at the same price to the students. The government will buy the upgraded version at the existing price of Rs 2,276 and it will be distributed among students at Rs 1,100 after subsidy.
HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said "This (Aakash 2) will be launched in April at the same price" Sibal said that existing vendor of Aakash tablet Datawind will supply the advance versions to the government. (Click to know more)
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