Kolkata: HCL Infosystems Limited yesterday (Dec 3, 2004) said that it has developed a new kind of personal computer that can work on a car battery and would be extremely effective in increasing rural penetration of PCs in the country.

The company is also planning to increase its present PC manufacturing capacity at Pondicherry from four lakh units per annum to meet the demand growth of 30-40 per cent while its Software Development Company, HCL Technologies, is geared up to set up its second Software Development Centre in Kerala.

''Our whole objective is to reach to the masses and the only way you can do it if you can make it easy to get, well supported and also lot cheaper. So that's really what our attempt is,'' Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of HCL Infosystems Ajai Chowdhury told reporters in Kolkata.

Speaking on the sidelines of Infocom 2004, he said that one of the key thing for HCL towards increasing PC penetration was offering products in the price range of Rs 15,000.

''Now we have started to move that product in multiple languages. We have gone on national TV, but not in English. Our advertisement is not in English, it is only in Hindi or regional languages,'' he said.

Chodhry said that the next attempt they were doing now was to take it to areas where there were issues like power. He said that what was happening now was that IT was not happening in small cities and that's where a lot of people live. About 73 per cent of people live in villages and rural areas.

''So we have actually created a new product, which is for this market where people have problems of power. Here you can attach your PC to a car battery and all you need is about 2-3 hours of electricity to just charge the battery to run your PC full time for seven to eight hours,'' he said.