The much anticipated Rs. 1600 tablet PC delayed.

Many of us might remember that last year Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource Development proudly announced the plans to launch Sakshat the cheapest tablet PC ever for the young students of the country at a price as cheap as Rs. 1600. The launch was planned on 15 January 2011. But we have not yet heard anything about the launch even after one week has passed after the launch date. There has not yet been any clarification from the HRD ministry or any government representative regarding this delay. It should be brought into the notice of readers that the tender to this much anticipated project was given to HCL last year in June. Sources say that some unreasonable demands from HCL have led to scrapping of the deal. The issue is said to be denial of HCL to raise a security deposit of Rs. 60 crores. This amount is meager as far as a big technological company like HCL is concerned. As far as HCL is concerned it has denied any cancellation of tender while the government is said to be looking for fresh tenders. There were also speculations that the cost of the tablet PC could rise to $124 from $35 because of import of a few components from Taiwan and Korea. The government has also suffered from accusations that the tablet was in fact an inferior Chinese prototype.

As far as the laptop was concerned, it was said to handle pdf documents, web browsing, wi-fi connectivity, video viewing and was to run on Android OS. The remarkable feature is that the tablet uses just 2 watts power.

We have to just wait and watch if this is another of the Indian government's flop shows similar to the $10 laptop scheme which has lost into the unknown. The government of India in the past has frustrated the people because of many such delays after building anticipations due to false promises. Let's hope it is not one of those cases and there are some clarifications over this.

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