Three More IITs Put to Work On the cheapest Aakash Tablet...

                                       The Government Of India intends to involve other three IITs (along with IIT Rajasthan) in the Aakash tablet PC project, with an eye to manufacture the product using local resources, and simultaneously bringing down price of the same. According to the HRD Ministry, IIT Mumbai, IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur are the other three institutes picked out for the project.

The meeting presided over by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal along with other senior officials from the ministry, was followed by this decision to include other IITs as well. A lot of attention was drawn over the indigenisation of the tablet. Currently, a number of components like the processor are arranged from outside. The point is to bring in more Indianness to the product within the coming two years, and make the tablet 90% Indian (ambitious!). Also, the lowering of the price was stressed upon. The current pricing of the tablet stands at Rs 1,100 for the students, which also covers the government subsidy.

In the first place, the HRD Ministry had settled the bidding for the improved version of Aakash, this will now be handled by the Department of Information Technology. This because of the differences between IIT Rajasthan and Datawind that came to fore, while the issue of increased specification demands concluded. According to the HRD, more 22 crore units of Aakash are needed, and to meet this demand, new tenders shall be issued to other companies along with Datawind.