The Aakash tablet

New Delhi, March 25: The government has issued a show-cause notice to IIT Rajasthan director Prem K. Kalra to explain the institution’s lapses in handling the Aakash project, which aims to provide Indian students with the world’s cheapest computer tablets.

The Union human resource development ministry has already taken the project out of the Rajasthan institute’s hands and asked IIT Bombay to take over.

Ministry documents The Telegraph has obtained say IIT Rajasthan has failed in its responsibilities that included testing and enhancing the technology of the Aakash tablets, made by Canada-based company Datawind.

Sources said the institute had failed to set up a testing facility for the devices despite being given Rs 25 crore for the purpose, which was part of a sum of Rs 47.72 crore released to it to execute the project.

The facility was to have ensured that the tablets conformed to the design and specifications, and had been envisaged as a permanent centre since the government plans to procure 220 million Aakash tablets in the long run.

The ministry notice of February 22 asks the IIT why it did not carry out its responsibilities or resolve its dispute with Datawind.

“It transpires from the various correspondence of IIT Rajasthan that the disputes have been allowed to linger by IIT Rajasthan without a dialogue with the vendor. Instead of resolving the disputes, IIT Rajasthan keeps writing to the ministry seeking advice,” says the notice, signed by ministry undersecretary Sunil Bareja.

It points out that the project had been sanctioned to the institution at its “own request” and that “funds have been already placed at (its) disposal long ago”.

IIT Rajasthan’s board of governors had discussed the matter in Delhi on February 19 and asked the institute to withdraw from the project to avoid further delay. It told Kalra, the institute’s director, to request the ministry to transfer the project to any appropriate organisation, following which the project was handed over to IIT Bombay.

Contacted for his comments, Kalra said he was in Agra and was unaware of any such communication from the ministry.

“I get 100 to 200 emails every day. So many things come and I do not remember them. If such a communication has come, my private secretary must have sent it to the faculty members handing the project. Since it is a one-month-old communication, the reply must have gone from us,” he said.

A government source said the ministry would decide its course of action after examining Kalra’s reply, and may hold an inquiry to fix responsibility.

This newspaper had carried a report on January 21 on the differences between IIT Rajasthan and Datawind, which was contracted to make and supply one lakh tablets but has not delivered all of them because of the dispute.

The IIT had earlier rejected 20,000 Aakash tablets saying they did not meet the new “tough testing protocols”. The Datawind CEO then complained to the ministry that the institute was repeatedly introducing new specifications and rejecting the devices on “flimsy grounds” such as “loose flaps” and “sound quality”.

IIT Rajasthan says the tablets should be water-resistant and damage-proof even if dropped from three feet onto a concrete floor — conditions that were not part of the tender document.

The tablet now costs Rs 2,275 but students are to get it for Rs 1,200 thanks to a government subsidy. The ministry had launched the Aakash last October, distributing about 10,000 tablets among students for field trials. The students came out with complaints about battery life, processor speed and the quality of the touch screen.

The technology had been conceptualised and developed by a group of experts from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the IITs at Kanpur, Kharagpur, Chennai and Mumbai. IIT Rajasthan was to work for enhancement of the technology.