The controversy surrounding Aakash tablets, world’s cheapest tablet, doesn’t seem to be subsiding anytime soon. A report published today by an Indian daily states that tablets are indeed manufactured entirely in China and simply procured for distribution in India under HRD ministry scheme.
First of all, let’s make few things clear. Aakash project, launched by Union HRD ministry a year & half back, was dubbed to revolutionize the learning for thousands of Indian schools. It was mean to great learning, a handy and cheap tool to help Indian schools to bridge the gap between learning & implementing principles. Was anywhere in tender mentioned that source of manufacturing be in India? I doubt!
Take any case, so be it tablets or telecom, Chinese products are pervasive, either in end product form or intermediary. In fact, to mention here, some of the World’s costliest Smartphone devices, made to perfection of sophistication, are partially or entirely made by low paid Chinese workers in Chinese factories. Then where is the shame in accepting that Aakash tablets are perfected by Chinese manufacturing sophistication?
Now as per report, Aakash was supposed to be made by some Indian firm based out of Hyderabad. Only justification can be sought to outsource the manufacturing in China is the derailed schedule of delivery of first lot of tablets. Can an Indian organization boast such capability to deliver? Again, I doubt here!
Department of Telecom or HRD Ministry, have always insisted (& even forced to some extent) Indian companies to avoid dependency on Chinese or Western counterpart for technology development. If we talk about telecom for instance, some of the leading operators in India, including Bharti Airtel have completely relied on Chinese expertise for managing their telecom networks. Millions of Indians aren’t even aware that the mobile calls they make on daily basis are routed through these Chinese equipment completely. What’s yield of such enforcement? We can’t shy away from fact that India can’t compete to Chinese manufacturing ability in near future, so be it handset, computer, tablets or even sophisticated medical or telecom equipment, we have no option but to look outside only.
This is partially because of policy faults. Government, who woke up late to Chinese invasion of technology, is now finding themselves sandwiched between ‘Desi’ agenda and rising costs of materials and manufacturing in India. We have stopped listening to technology advisor like Sam Pitroda, who has been long advocating on making India heaven for manufacturing for past two decades. Little to blame on Datawind!
But again if you look at current state of Aakash tablets, it opens up beautiful opportunity for Indian companies. Let’s exploit Chinese manufacturing skills with Indian Software capability to make something highly competitive to Apple, HTC, Nokia, Samsung, Microsoft or anything. We have hardly made any success beyond Micromax & Lava, who chose to adopt or rather follow leaders in the category. Can’t anyone see the big picture of benefits rather than shouting slogans against Chinese invasion (Are we still living in 1962?) Who is losing here? If any Indian company has to look beyond CSR initiative then bidding was open for tender of Aakash tablets? Why Indian companies shied away, just because of cost concerns or are they scared of taking challenge of making world’s cheapest tablets in India?
I appreciate Datawind who took the challenge. Let’s stop discussing the controversies. They are never going to die here. We often tend to lose big picture for sake of small controversies which could well be sorted out by discussions. India Inc, who has never built anything on his own in technology, should introspect on why we didn’t deliver till date rather than blaming China for making products for us. If you have guts- deliver or shut up!
