Kiran Majumdar Shaw, chairman of Biocon Ltd, believes it would be enough if the device works just as a tele-teaching tool.
It’s a Nano wonder that could work a miracle in the Indian education space. That’s one thing that could happen if Union human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal’s 7-inch tablet — Aakash - priced around Rs1,900-2,000 ($40-45) takes off.
The indigenously produced device created for students will be launched on Wednesday. A government official said it may be priced slightly higher than earlier projected price of $35 because of cost escalation since it was conceived a few years ago.
However, if this move were to get caught in a bureaucratic web, it could just fall flat as yet another gimmick. This cynicism of many experts stems from the unbelievably low price of the device and failure of many other such exercises undertaken by the government in the past.
“At that price, one has to see what would be performance of the tablet. It may end up nothing more than a storage device... Also, we have to see how it will be distributed,” said a senior executive with a leading PC firm.
However, not everyone shares his pessimistic view on the product. Kiran Majumdar Shaw, chairman and managing director of Biocon Ltd, believes it would be enough if the device works just as a tele-teaching tool.
“It (Aakash) need not have to be a business tool. Even if it can send and receive learning material, it can be an effective tool for e-learning,” she said. To counter hurdles on the distribution front, she says the government should adopt e-procurement method for greater transparency.
“It (e-procurement) would be an important step for better accountability and delivery (of the product). That way, the government would be able to better track how many units have been sold and whether it is reaching the targeted beneficiary,” she said.
TV Mohandas Pai, former Infosys HR head and chairman of Manipal University, said if the programme works then it will revolutionise the education landscape in the country where every student would learn electronically through videos and texts on tablets.
A government official said the government would initially manufacture 10,000 units and gradually scale up the production.
“We will begin supplying the tablet to government college students first and then to school students. Once we achieve the economies of scale, we will be able to bring down the price further,” he said.
The tablet, which was designed by a Bangalore-based company, will be manufactured by Canadian company Datawind at its Noida facility.
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