The Education Ministry will hold a second round of tablet auctions for two zones of the second phase of the government's One Tablet per Child scheme by April after a Chinese supplier failed to meet its delivery deadline.
The date for the second round will be decided tomorrow.
This marks another failure of the government's populist policies and the impact of political interference.
China's Shenzhen Yitoa Intelligent Control Co last week terminated two purchase contracts with the Thai government to supply 800,000 tablets to Prathom 1 students in Zones 1 and 2 in the second phase of the tablet project after the company failed to deliver all tablets within 90 days of the contract signing last September.
The deal was worth 1.63 billion baht.
The second phase of the tablet scheme cost the Thai government 4.61 billion baht of the fiscal 2013 budget for 1.63 million tablets for Prathom 1 and Mathayom 1 students.
Yitoa earlier asked the Education Ministry to extend its delivery date by 60 days after the December deadline, but the ministry rejected the request, saying it would violate the Procurement Act.
"We actually have to terminate the contract in accordance with the contracts, but the Chinese firm made the move before us," said a high-ranking source at the Office of the Basic Education Commission, which oversees the tablet auctions.
"We also have the right to seize a 120-million-baht bank guarantee deposit from Yitoa for the delivery failure."
Yitoa and Jasmine attributed their delays to a shortage of Dynamic Random Access Memory caused by a fire that broke out last Sept 4 at SK Hynix's DRAM line in Wuxi, China.
In fact, the source said the fire incident happened three weeks before the tablet contracts were to be signed.
He acknowledged that the terms of reference for the tablet auction have been changed to benefit a particular group of bidders to qualify for the bidding and caused a one-year delay to the project.
Chen Hui, the owner of Yitoa Technology (Thailand), which is the broker of Yitoa Intelligent Control Co, said the firm had filed a complaint with the Chinese embassy in Thailand against Yitoa for ruining Chinese firms' reputation and credibility.
The source said Jasmine Telecom Systems will today send a letter to the Education Ministry asking for a 90-day extension for its delivery date after the Dec 23 deadline to avoid a penalty fee.
The company will ask to deliver the first batch of 30,000 tablets tomorrow, with the remainder due to be delivered next month.