Govt to rope in three more IITs for Aakash tablet project

by on February 3rd, 2012

To make the Aakash tablet more indigenous and to further lower its price, the government is planning to bring in three more IITs – IIT Mumbai, IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur to work on the project along with IIT Rajasthan.

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal chaired a meeting with senior officials from the Ministry and the Department of IT to discuss on the matter.

The govt is focused on indigenisation of the tablet, whose components including the processor are currently procured from outside.

“The aim is to give shape to the indigenisation plan within the next two years and make the product 90 per cent Indian. At the same time, emphasis will be laid on further lowering the prices of the device,” add the sources.

Earlier, the HRD Ministry had decided to give future tendering and procurement for Aakash 2 tablets to public sector undertakings such as ITI Ltd or Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd (TCIL), owing to the differences between IIT Rajasthan and Datawind, the manufacturer of the tablet, over the issue of enhanced specification demands.

The new tender for Aakash 2 is reported to be of over one million units, and to meet the huge demand the govt plans to hand over the task of procurement to 2-3 vendors.

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