Thiruvananthapuram: Tender conditions have prevented hardware manufacturer Coconics, a public-private initiative, from bidding for a government project to provide five lakh laptops to the students in the state.
As per the tender conditions, only those companies, that have sold at least 10,000 laptops in a single order in every year for the last three years, are eligible to even send the expression of interest for the government project.
Coconics, a firm in which the Kerala government has a stake, was started last October, and has sold only 4,000-odd laptops till now.
Allegations have been raised that the tender conditions set by the IT Mission favour big companies.
Coconics suffered the setback even as it received the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification to launch laptops for students at an approximate cost of Rs 15,000.
The manufacturing unit of the Coconics was started at Manvila in Thiruvananthapuram over an agreement that one lakh laptops for the government requirements would be procured from the company at a fixed rate every year. Companies such as Intel and UST Global too became a part of the venture based on this assurance.
