Aakash 2 project completed, 1 lakh units shipped to government: Datawind

Datawind, the maker of low-cost Aakash tablets, on Wednesday said it has shipped to the government all the 1 lakh units completing the deal after almost two-and-a-half years that was marred by glitches.

Datawind had won the contract to supply 1 lakh unit of Aakash tablets priced at $ 49.98 apiece in 2011, translated into a price of Rs. 2,276 at that time.

"We have supplied all units of Aakash tablets under contract to the government. It will be with the transporter by midnight tonight and will be processed through Letter of Credit documentation by IIT-Bombay," Datawind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli told PTI.

He said the company has already supplied 74,700 units of Aakash 2, upgraded version of tablet unveiled in October 2011, which have been delivered to and accepted by C-DAC, Noida and IIT-Bombay and 25,300 units are to be processed through Transporter in Noida.

"The 25,300 unit final shipments will be released by State Bank of India (IIT-Bombay's bank) upon endorsement of the delivery order, as per the Letter of Credit requirement established by IIT-Bombay," he said.

Datawind had won the contract to supply 1 lakh unit of Aakash tablets priced at $ 49.98 apiece in 2011, translated into a price of Rs. 2,276 at that time. The project was then handled by IIT Jodhpur which provided the specifications for the product.

After running in controversies on the quality of product, the project was shifted under IIT Bombay and Datawind was asked to supply better version of the product, Aakash 2 at price of Rs. 2,263 apiece, which is around $ 42 at the current exchange rate.

"We have supplied 98,000 of Aakash 2 devices and 2,000 devices with DataWind's recommendations for upgraded version of Aakash 2, all at a price of Rs. 2,263," Tuli said.

Aakash 2 tablet was upgraded from 366 Mhz processor, 256 MB internal memory (RAM) to 1Ghz processor, 512MB of RAM, flash memory of 4GB can be supplemented by up to 32GB external memory card card slot.

The 2,000 unit of upgraded Aakash 2 version recommended by DataWind has an embedded SIM slot which will provide user both cellular voice and data functionality, he said.