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Freedom 251 To Hold An Event Today, Delivery From Tomorrow

Ringing Bells Wants The Government To Invest ₹50000 Crore
A Freedom 251 smartphone, which is to be priced at Indian Rupees 251 or USD 3.6 approximately, is shown during its release by an official of Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd. in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016.(AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
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A Freedom 251 smartphone, which is to be priced at Indian Rupees 251 or USD 3.6 approximately, is shown during its release by an official of Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd. in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016.(AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

The world's cheapest phone will finally be in the consumer's hand from tomorrow. The company Ringing Bells will be delivering a batch of 5000 phones from July 8. The final price of the phone will be ₹291 as there are delivery charges of ₹40.

Today the makers of the Freedom 251 are holding an event where they will be announcing the new affordable LED TV which will also be named Freedom. This TV is priced under ₹10000. The TV is a 32-inch device. Mohit Goel who is the founder of the Ringing Bells is claiming that they already have significant units ready to go on sale.

The registration for the purchase of the TVs will be starting from July 25 and the actual sale of the TV will take place from July 1. A total of 1 lakh units will be sold in the first batch.

The event will also see a new range of smartphones unveiled by Ringing Bells. There is no certainty over the specification or the price range for these phones. Goel has claimed that after the event they will start the delivery process of the first 5000 Freedom 251 phones.

"I was facing a loss of ₹930 per handset. We have imported the parts of the phone from Taiwan. I recovered ₹700-800 from app developers and revenue generated through advertisements on Freedom 251 website. After selling the device for ₹251 (cash on delivery), the total loss per handset is expected to be in the range of ₹180-270," Goel told IANS.

The company is also planning to make a bunch of apps for Freedom 251. Goel wants to generate revenue from those apps. He wants the apps to be priced from ₹1 to ₹3. One of those apps is a cloud storage service called WhiteCloud.

Ringing Bells has very ambitious plans. Goel wants the government to invest a ridiculous amount of ₹50000 crores to fuel the Digital India movement with the Ringing Bells. He said that if Narendra Modi invests the money they can make almost 750 million people part of the digital revolution. In fact, on June 28 he sent a letter to the Prime Minister about the investment.

"The government can make the phone -- under our Freedom brand -- from some other vendor. I have no objection to it. To make such phone for every Indian citizen, the government needs to allocate funds from its Digital India initiative. The motto behind the company is to fuel the Make in India and Digital India movements," said Goel.

Earlier the government had distanced itself from any kind of involvement with the Freedom 251 and Ringing Bells. In fact, one of the BJP MLAs had filed the complaint against the owners for duping the customers. Many politicals figures were invited to the first event held in February. But this time, the company is trying to avoid any kind of controversy.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.