Even as the controversy around the success of Aakash tablet refuses to die down, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said Government officials should increasingly use tablets instead of personal computers.
“Just a day before I was having a meeting with regard to a Government programme, which aims at training 40 lakh employees in the Government with computers so that we can do lot of services electronically. My answer was that in three years’ time we are not going to have computers,” Sibal said on the sidelines of CII’s annual general meeting here.
“If I know that the world is moving towards iPads, why would I train people in computers? In any case a computer costs Rs 20,000, while a tablet costs only Rs 4,000. Make Aakash the platform and hand over it to every employee,” he said pushing the case for his pet project.
The Minister said that tablet is easy to operate and even a child will know how to use it.
“Tablet is a self learning process…you don’t have to teach anybody. Use technology and allow people to learn because we cannot wait for the people to be taught,” he said.
There have been lot of complaints about the quality of Aakash tablets with many customers not getting the product for a long time after placing orders. The maker of Aakash tablets – Datawind – has defended the project saying it was working on all the short comings.
Sibal also has been supporting the project and recently said the project is very much ‘alive and kicking’ and also there are about 18 more vendors who want to manufacture the tablet at Rs 2,500 each.