Kerala health department's 9,500 tabs worth Rs 15.80cr damaged

Kozhikode: About half of the 9,500 computer tablets that were purchased for Rs 15.80 crore for the eHealth Kerala project have been rendered unusable due to damage.

Of the tabs purchased from a private company, 4,404 are completely damaged, while 4,455 have been left unused for eight years.

As these are beyond repair, the health department is planning to destroy the unusable tabs en masse. Even 25 per cent of the tablets bought at a high cost could not be used, revealing severe laxity.

The tabs were purchased using the funds allocated by the central government to improve e-governance. The wasteful expenditure of Rs 15.80 crore came to light after the audit report of the tablets was disclosed under the Right to Information Act.

At least 4,404 tabs have hardware damage. The eHealth authorities claim that 23 were lost during the floods, while it is not clear what happened to 246 tabs. Some were damaged without ever being used.

The iBall Slide Brace-X1 tablets were purchased from 2017 onwards during various stages. A total of 1,500 tablets were purchased for Rs 13,550 per tablet, and 8,000 were bought for Rs 15,228 each, plus the tax.

Keltron had purchased the tabs from a private company and handed these over to the eHealth Kerala project. The tablets were purchased without even allegedly taking an estimate of the number of health department staff who can be sent for field surveys.

The eHealth Kerala project was launched in 2016 when K K Shailaja was the Health Minister. The directive was to collect the health details of each individual in 14 districts along with the Aadhaar number on the tabs and transfer it to the eHealth server. The data collection is still being carried out on paper.