After the Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Ltd (UPECL) failed to get a single bid till Oct 1, the deadline, it has become evident that the state government will not be able to distribute free laptops to school students any time soon. The state government has now decided to float a fresh bid document with new deadline.

The government had floated the Request for Proposal document on August 29. At a pre-bid meeting on September 10, which was attended by some of the top companies, like Lenovo, Intel, Acer, Wipro and Microsoft, some changes in the tender document were suggested. Also, some of the companies demanded more time for submitting the certified sample of the laptop.

After this meeting, the government planned to issue a corrigendum, clarifying the issues raised by the bidders and also extending the time. Going by the bid document, the corrigendum should have been issued at least seven days before the last date, giving enough time to the bidders. But the government failed to do this. Therefore, the government now has to start the process afresh.

In its election manifesto, the ruling Samajwadi Party had promised to give free laptops to students passing Class XII and free tablets to students passing Class X on taking admission in the next higher class. According to government estimates, about 17.98 lakh laptops will have to be procured in the first year.

The process of procurement of tablets has been put on hold for the time being; it would be pursued only after issues related to laptop procurement are sorted out. If the government fails to distribute the laptops and tablets in the next eight months, then the next batch of students would pass out in May and the numbers would increase.