HRD may dump Aakash tablet,hints Pallam Raju

“Aakash is only a tablet… there are other such devices as well. While work will continue to develop it and increase its productivity,manufacturing is obviously a problem,” Raju said of the $35 tablet that now stares at an uncertain future.

The HRD Ministry has also decided to hold back its proposed tender for procuring 5 million Aakash tablets. It has alongside instituted two committees to review the Aakash tablet project as well as the National Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) and will take a final view on the much publicised tablet depending on these reports.

This is the first instance of Raju attempting a clear reversal of an education policy and position that was strongly backed by predecessor Sibal and in fact by the UPA in its first avatar under Arjun Singh as well.

On the ground,Canadian manufacturer Datawind has only managed to supply 20,000 Aakash tablets so far even as it stares at a March 31deadline for delivery of the remaining 80,000 devices. An unhappy HRD Ministry also recently shot off a letter to IIT Bombay — that tests and preps the Aakash tablet for target users — to take action against Datawind for not meeting delivery deadlines. The ministry is even considering getting Datawind blacklisted if it fails to deliver the remaining devices.

Secretary Higher Education Ashok Thakur admitted the Datawind experience was a big setback for the project. Thakur said the ministry would have been more confident about taking forward the tender for 5 million such devices,if the one lakh tablets had been delivered and assessed through student use.Two committees — one under academic Prof Goverdhan Mehta who is also Chairman BoG IIT Jodhpur and another headed by NIIT Chairman Rajendra Pawar — are currently reviewing the Aakash project.

The Aakash tablet which was to be made available to students across educational institutes at a subsidised rate of Rs 1,130 instantly gathered global attention with its price tag but it has been quite a non-starter on most other counts also attracting damaging negative publicity along the way. If the first lot of devices were termed as rather substandard by users,IIT Jodhpur,which was originally handling the contract,and Datawind got into a serious conflict over the testing of the tablet forcing the ministry to intervene and transfer the project to IIT Bombay.