6 yrs after big launch, NAMO tablets for students likely to be replaced with laptops

In the meantime, a technical committee constituted by the Education Department — after the agency concerned failed to meet the listed specifications for the NAMO e-tablets — is scheduled to meet this week.

“The committee is going to take a call on the issue of the agency that was technically not meeting the required specification,” Banchha Nidhi Pani, Commissioner, Technical Education, told The Indian Express. A decision is expected following the meeting.

Thousands of students had been waiting for NAMO e-tablets for several years. The delay was linked to the suspension of schemes for nearly three years.

Amid the procurement delay, the backlog kept swelling, and rose up to 9,75,000, an official said. Around 3 lakh students each took admission in degree or diploma in 2020-21 and 2021-22, and there was a backlog of 75,000 from 2019-20, while 3,00,000 students got added in the academic session 2022-23, he added.

The state government could barely provide tablets to less than 10 per cent of eligible students, as per the details available.

The NAMO Tablet Yojana was launched in the academic session 2017-18 amid much fanfare by the then Chief Minister Vijay Rupani who had equated these tablets to “Lord Krishna’s Sudarshan Chakra (spinning wheel) that will bring knowledge at fingertips”. At the massive event in August 2017, he stated the “BJP government does not view the youth as a vote bank… but new age power”.

In its 2017-18 budget, the state government announced a scheme of handing out tablets at a price of Rs 1,000, against the claimed market price of Rs 7,000-Rs 8,000, to all students who had cleared Class 12 in 2016-17 and were pursuing degree or diploma courses in any college or university.

Last year, in April, The Indian Express spoke to students who were on the verge of completing their three and four-year degree and diploma courses without getting the tablets for which they have paid at the start of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic sessions. They sought refund of their money.

Students say they have sent repeated requests, complaints, and reminders to the state government, including to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). The universities have also taken up the issue with the state government, demanding a refund of the students’ money. Complaints and requests for refund were also forwarded to the nodal agency for the scheme — Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat (KCG).

In November 2021, after the first lot of nearly 50,000 tablets failed the quality standards testing, the state government could not go ahead with the distribution to over 72,000 first-year undergraduate students (who are now in their third year), an official said.

The distribution was earlier delayed due to the ‘Make in India’ clause of the Gujarat government and then failed quality tests posed a big challenge. Tenders were issued several times but failed to generate the expected response, and meet the technical specifications. In the month of August, the tender was finally awarded to Lava International.

Sources in the Education Department confirmed the delay due to the first lot by the vendor failing technical quality standards. “Among the technical specifications including speed, memory, battery back-up, screen, and component checks, the lot has failed in two-three major specifications,” confirmed a senior official on the condition of anonymity.

An official response was sought by The Indian Express from the Education Department, which has not yet been given.

Already under political pressure from the opposition on the delay, the state government in August 2021 had assured to clear the backlog within a month (to coincide with five years celebrations of the Vijay Rupani government).

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The constant delay aggravated the challenges amid dependence on online modes of education during the pandemic, according to the students.