Was the Aakash tablet PC made in China?

Datawind, the maker of Aakash tablet PC, on Saturday said assembling and programming of the low-cost tablet has been done in the country and only some main parts have been sourced from China.

The company said this refuting a media report that stated the product was not an Indian innovation and was imported from China.

"For the first 10,000 units for IIT, and for expediency sake we had the motherboards and kits manufactured in our Chinese subcontractor's facilities, and then the units have been 'kitted' in China at various manufacturers for expediency, whereas the final assembly and programming has happened in India," Datawind said in a statement.

Datawind said it got the approval from the government to procure components from China.

"This was well discussed and we got approval prior to shipping. The initial devices were assembled and programmed at our facilities in New Delhi and Amritsar," it said.

The advanced version of Aakash was launched on November 11 by President Pranab Mukherjee.

"We finished this batch of 10,000 units and delivered them to IIT and will be starting another batch of 20,000 units for them in two weeks," the statement added.

The new version 'Aakash 2', is powered by a processor running at 1 GHz, has a 512 MB, a 7-inch capacitative touch screen and a battery working for three hours of normal operations.

The first version of tablet had processor with 366 Megahertz, 256 MB RAM and 2GB flash memory. It has WiFi based Internet connectivity option.

The first one lakh devices will be provided to students of engineering colleges and universities and subsequently these will be distributed to others.

Photograph: Reuters.