Inside story: How MIT deal fell apart

That was not all. Another $ 3 million was sought as an annual ‘programme fee’ at the end of the first year of operations — which was exploratory — that saw little progress and no private investment.

It wasn’t as if MIT wasn’t willing to negotiate. In a letter, MIT offered to settle for a payment of $1 million per year if $5 million seemed too high, but this would mean that the ‘exclusivity’ of the contract could be called off any moment.

When legal opinion was sought, it turned out that the word ‘scope’ would determine whether the tie-up was exclusive or not. According to the opinion given by solicitors Amarchand Mangaldas to the government, if the ‘scope’ of the tie-up with any other country

was changed, a Media Lab (China) could come up. Also, MIT was reportedly in talks with Singapore and Korea despite commitment to India for exclusivity of the Media Lab for Asia. Another problem was the area of research.

According to documents available with The Sunday Express, several programmes earlier listed for research work had nothing to do to benefit the rural Indian masses. These were dropped within the first few months. These included ‘Interactive Tabla Teacher’, ‘Cultural Computing Centre’, ‘Digital Walkthrough’, ‘Artcastings’, ‘Infotrans’, ‘Virtual Collaborative Workplaces’ and ‘Heat Pump-assisted Chiller Cum Dryer.’

At the end of the first year, the IITs — which incidentally have a budget of Rs 1 crore each — felt they had got no substantial inputs from MIT and hence wanted a more diverse cooperation with other foreign universities.

IIT Bombay’s Ashok Misra wrote to the government, saying ‘‘no specific interactions with any researcher or faculty from Media Labs of MIT ’’ were held ‘‘nor had inputs from them added significant value to the projects.’’

He stated that while the government was paying for the research work carried out mainly by the IITs, ‘‘intellectual property is to be shared with Media Lab, MIT.’’

‘‘We gained nothing from the tie-up which was expected to help carry out research in a non-governmental atmosphere and bring in private investment,’’ says Communications and IT Minister Arun Shourie. ‘‘But nothing of the sort happened and, in fact, IIT professors were in any case doing all the work.’’

The project was originally set up to develop commercially viable information and communication technologies which would enable rural prosperity. The five Indian IITs with help from MIT were supposed to come up with cost-effective and commercially viable technologies. The original cost was estimated to be Rs 65 crore for the year, of which Rs 35 crore was spent.

The Cabinet will now decide on a new leaner Media Lab minus MIT. The IITs will have a larger role to play. The funds required for the project have also been scaled down from Rs 1,535 crore for five years (Rs 455 crore as contributions from the government and the remaining from private sources) to Rs 227 crore from government funds and Rs 45 crore from private investments.