Despite heading both the Union HRD and IT ministries, Kapil Sibal has been unable to launch the much-publicised and much-anticipated Aakash tablet, with repeated deadlines being missed. It is understood that the two ministries have been “discussing” the launch of the Aakash-2 tablet despite preparing a Cabinet note almost six months ago for procurement of 50 lakh devices. The two ministries have been unable to seek the clearance of the Union council of ministers, further delaying the project.
Projected as the cheapest computing device in the world, the announcement of the tablet targeted at the student community was made by Mr Sibal in October last year. The government has been unable to procure the tablets for students and faculty despite a prototype of the device being unveiled as far back as July 2010.
Sources stated that the tablet, this time being developed in coordination with IIT-Bombay, is far from being finalised and could take another few months before becoming a reality for end users.
Sources stated that the launch date of the Aakash-2 tablet is yet to be known. The delays and controversies affecting the project have been repeated withholding the low-cost computing device from the student community in India.
Priced at `2,276, the device will be subsidised by up to 50 per cent for students as the government prepares to expand information technology education in the country. The device was developed as part of India’s aim to link 25,000 colleges and 400 universities in an e-learning programme.
It is understood that the government plans to upgrade Aakash-2 over the original Aakash tablet. It is claimed that the initial version, procured through a private firm, had failed to perform up to expected standards. It ran Android v2.2 on a 366MHz processor, based on an older ARM architecture. The Aakash-2 tablet is likely to be replaced by a successor, which will have a dual core Cortex-A9 processor by the end of this year.