The fate of Aakash Tablet project is in limbo; thanks to government ofIndia’s flip-flops over manufacturing decisions.
So what’s happening to much hyped Aakash Tablet project these days?
In past couple of weeks, there’s lots of buzz going on web regarding who should be given the authority to build Aakash Tablets. The bone of contention was some final specifications of Aakash-I, where Datawind, theUK based company, which was given contract to manufacture first set of tablets had disagreed to specifications & final features proposed by IIT Jodhpur, which first innovated the product.
Prof. Kalra, from IIT Jodhpur, who is also heading project ‘Aakash, had earlier commented that the priority of making Aakash goes to safety & usability of the product, which Datawind has objected heavily. So government has to step in to resolve the disputes & settle on specifications. Department of IT is calling tender to finalize on Aakash Tablet manufacturers.
In fact, recently government of India had also announced to rope in two more IITs to complete the project without any detailed roles specifications. Why? We don’t know.
In fact, Mr. Tuli, CEO of Datawind, had stated earlier that his company has built Aakash-I as per specifications in tender. But then, if tablet was built on specs, why IIT has issues with that?
Aakash, which was innovated & conceptualized at IIT Jodhpur, was proposed to be built up on two core competencies. IIT, which is well know for researching & developing the product, will keep on improving Aakash in coming months, while Datawind ( Or someone else?), which is good at manufacturing, will be handed over the responsibility to build the actual product. But then things appear to be falling apart between IIT & Datawind over specs row.
Yesterday, Union HRD minister, Mr. Kapil Sibbal, has announced that Aakash will be fully indigenous product and Datawind, which was earlier handed over contract to build Aakash-I, is no longer going to be part of the project. Instead department is inviting CDAC & ITI to further develop product. He also announced that the improved version of the tablet would cost the same & by year end we would get to see tablet in market.
Isn’t it drastic & haphazard to kick out Datawind out of the project? What about calling up tenders? Why all of a sudden government realized the ingenuousness of the product? Do CDAC & ITI have capabilities to execute the project at first place? So many questions were thrown open after the announcement.
After mismanaging the project for quite long, finally if CDAC/ITI is going to further develop the product, the question remains open on who would finally be building the product?
Let’s keep fingers crossed!