23rd Feb 2012
First Published: Thu, Feb 23 2012. 06 00 AM IST
Updated: Fri, Feb 24 2012. 11 33 PM IST
The utterly mismanaged Aakash project typifies governance in India, where pointing fingers is the norm. Failure to make realistic assessments, failure to take responsibility and lack of accountability on the part of authority plague the country.
Lots of energy but failure to execute has been the chief complaint by many multinationals that set up shop in India. But the same is applicable to public enterprise. Projects are declared with much fanfare. Later we discover that precious public capital has been frittered away on what turns out to be a harebrained scheme.
I recall watching minister of human resources development, information technology and communications minister Kapil Sibal on a television tech show some time ago, showing off his little tablet. Instead of asking hard questions, the two anchors were gushing over the device. So-called exclusivity was the focus -- “We’ve got Sibal and his tablet on our show.”
Given what we know now, this affair also reflects the cut-copy-paste nature of India, where no real innovation happens. If educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Rajasthan, cut copy paste Hewlett-Packard Co.’s specs for US military requirements, what does it say about India as a country?
While I’m not a big fan of Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit association, some lessons learned from what happens when you start off with an unrealistic price point may be useful in dislodging delusions. After all, someone has been there before.
Get a grip on ground realities before you reach for the sky, Mr. Sibal, because the world is watching and seeing only heads in clouds.
Roping in the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), the department of information technology and throwing in some other IITs is not going to solve this problem. If these institutions really mattered, one has to ask why were they not involved in the first place? Why IIT Rajasthan alone?
Moreover, high-powered committees are mostly about wasting paper by publishing verbose reports.
Finally, talk about making it local is really ironic because Mint carried a story on Monday about the unwanted opportunity thrust upon local hardware manufacturers. The 30% government procurement policy has few takers and was rightly called ”dead on arrival,” by an MNC official.
Perhaps this whole affair can be used as a case study of how not to do business at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). Better yet, maybe it’s time to rope in the IIMs to manage this debacle.
As Professor Pramod K. Nayar says about this whole affair, this tablet is a tough pill to swallow.
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