NEW DELHI, July 31: It doesn't take a Bill Gates to say computers get outdated fast. But the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan (KVS), it seems, hasn't learned this primary lesson. Showing little common sense and no foresight, the Sanghatan has spent lakhs of rupees purchasing obsolete computers for its schools.In 1996, when computer prices crashed, the KVS, which runs over 800 schools across the country, ordered the purchase of 35 486 computers with dot-matrix printers at Rs 97,360 for phased implementation of its Computer Literacy and Studies in Schools (CLASS) project. Then, the market was suffuse with the more advanced Pentiums which were available for less than half the price. Even more shocking is the purchase of 1985-vintage 386 computers for as high a price as Rs 82,898 each. Over three years from 1995, it has bought 113 of these obsolete systems, each coming with a dot-matrix printer. While there may have been some justification for the purchase at this price in late 1994 when orders were placed, it certainly defies all logic to buy them on the same terms in 1997. Only as recently as December 1996-January 1997, the KVS was supplied 45 of these computers.Computer industry sources confirm that the price at which the computers were bought was on the higher side. ``Prices started coming down after 1995. Even in 1994 the 386 systems with a dot-matrix printer couldn't have cost more than Rs 60,000,'' says Jagdeep Jaggi, assistant director, All India Computer Manufacturers' Association. As for the 486 computers, he said they could have been bought at half the price.The computers were bought with Central Government funds released through the Human Resource Development Ministry under the CLASS project.The 386 computers were purchased from a Delhi-based private company, Unicorp Industries Limited. The rate contract agreement with the company was only for a year (from November 1994 to November 1995) in which all the systems ordered for should have been supplied. But the delivery continued till early this year. The process is still on to complete supply of the 131 computers ordered.But joint education adviser in the HRD Ministry, Sethumadhava Rao, claims there was just the ``small problem'' of late deliveries of the computers due to the company's insistence on advance payment. ``This was sorted out,'' he said.The bungling in the purchase of these computers has been taken note of not only by internal audit in the HRD ministry but also by a parliamentary committee. In its report on the demands for grants on the Department of Education for the year 1996-97, the committee headed by former Home Minister S B Chavan, it said that it was ``anguished to note that there is rampant corruption in KVS and this has resulted in purchase of sub-standard computers.''The HRD Ministry, however, denied that there was anything fishy in the purchase of the computers. ``The price at which they were bought was well within the limits prescribed. Everything was entrusted to the National Informatics Centre (NIC) which has expertise in the field,'' said Rao.The HRD Ministry had enlisted the services of the NIC for tendering and finalising the selection of a panel of vendors for supply, testing and installation of the hardware.When contacted, NIC's Director General N Seshagiri agreed that buying 386 computers in 1996 or later at the price agreed to when the tender was finalised in 1994 did not make sense. He washed his hands of the whole affair, blaming government procedure for the anomalies that have crept in.``The existing procedures for making purchases are not conducive to mid-course correction,'' he said. Seshagiri claimed that the NIC had in fact recommended that the original tender should be scrapped to facilitate the purchase of later models of computers last year. According to him, the HRD ministry which was hard-pressed to show progress in the implementation of the project came up with an alibi re-tendering would mean delays and possible lapse of funds in the beneficiary institutions. He said: ``We will now categorically tell the ministry that NIC will withdraw if it doesn't go in for the latest technology.''And as for the HRD ministry, when asked for the justification for the purchase of obsolete systems, Rao said: ``It is not that they are useless. They can be upgraded at minimal cost.''With irregularities piling up, NIC now seems to be making efforts to control the damage. It is soon sending a questionnaire to all the school principals to get a good idea, statistically, how the CLASS project has fared.
