Aakash to open new windows for e-governance projects

Aakash, world’s most affordable tablet PC, may soon make its way into the country’s power corridors and may help fight corruption. After showcasing his favourite gadget to the world leaders at Unesco and World Bank, Telecom and Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal now wants all central ministries to use Aakash for their e-governance projects.

Sibal believes the tablet PC would help plug the leakages that cause corruption, if used in e-governance projects.

To further the project, Sibal has written a letter to all ministries to consider his proposal and requested each ministry to recommend applications for projects they want to be implemented through the tablet.

Speaking to Business Standard, Sibal said, “I want Aakash to be used as a platform of delivery. I have written a letter to all Cabinet ministers requesting them to let us know what kind of applications they want in Aakash.”

Sibal believes that maximum leakages in governance can be plugged through the use of technology and similar to what he plans through Aakash.

“Intermediaries will be eliminated. And most of concerns of the people against corruption would be addressed if such a project is executed,” he said.

The tablet-PC, which was launched in New Delhi on October 5, has been developed jointly by Canadian company DataWind and Indian Institute of Technology, Rajasthan, under the HRD ministry’s National Mission on Education.

The government is buying 100,000 tablets from DataWind at a price of Rs 2,250 per unit. For the project, Sibal has also got the Unique Identification Authority of India head Nandan Nilekani on board. Sibal has asked Nilekani to develop an Aadhar application for the table PC. “It will be interesting to see how all these applications can be integrated,” Sibal said. The Aakash tablet has a seven-inch display with 800-by-480 pixel resolution, 256 MB RAM, two GB flash storage, and a 366 MHz processor. The tablet runs on the Android 2.2 operating system.