BEL to roll out 1,500 Simputers this fiscal

BANGALORE, INDIA: After having been shunted out as a failure over the last few years, the much-hyped Amida Simputer project is back in action. Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), the manufacturers and distributors of Simputer handsets, has bagged major orders from Kolkata Police, Tamil Nadu Sugar Corp. (TNSC) and is expecting over 1,500 new orders during this fiscal.

The Simputer, originally developed as a "poor man's computer," is also being pitched as a device that can handle a wide range of business and personal-computing requirements. Simputer-maker PicoPeta, which began shipping the Simputers about five years ago, has sold more than 10,000 units, well below its 50,000 unit first-year plan, as reports indicate. In addition, 2,000 units have reportedly been sold by Encore Software, the other company into Simputers.

However, V.S. Ramanujan, manager, Simputers, Bharat Electronics Ltd says: "The Simputer is a specialized handheld computing device unlike other electronic gadgets like calculators that can be sold in thousands. These are custom-built to the specification and requirements of the company. Our production line for Simputers has never come to a stand still so far."

BEL following the footsteps of the traffic police of Bangalore and Delhi, their Kolkata counterpart is also getting ready to use a hand-held gadget for slapping fines on traffic violators. ``The idea behind introducing this gadget was to speed up the process of penalizing traffic rule violators. This will be used in handling seizure and compound cases and if someone violates traffic norms, the policemen will issue a "on the spot court notices" or Simputer-generated challan, which cannot be tampered with,’’ he said adding that already 180 Simputers with 32 MB flash memory and 64 MB Random Access Memory have been purchased by the Kolkata police department.

Besides, BEL has also manufactured 100 sets of Simputers (hardware) and delivered to TNSC, an apex organization of the co-operative sugar factories in Tamil Nadu. TNSC has a membership of 17 cooperative and three public sector sugar mills. Ramanujan says that the necessary application software for online data capturing of cane related data and "on the spot information delivery" to cane growers is currently under testing. "The installation and commissioning of this project will be done in about two week’s time," he said.

The PSU-major is banking on existing clients for more orders besides new government clientele. "We expect to manufacture over 1,500 Simputers during the financial year 2007-08," Ramanujan adds.

In case of Encore, the Simputer is being used by the Dempo Mining Corp. at their weighbridges. Other applications include in areas of healthcare (patient records), e-governance (identity cards) and utilities billing.

The Simputer has been used in a project that involved education of tribals in Chattisgarh. BEL has delivered its biggest order of 900 sets to Chattisgarh Information & Biotech Promotion Society (CHiPS) in June 2005.

The Simputer now powers two projects -- The Gulbarga Electricity and Supply Company's spot electricity billing system, and Bhoomi, the land records computerization effort in Karnataka. The company has installed 20 Simputers on to the GESCOM project, while for Bhoomi it has deployed over 200 machines on the field. On the GESCOM project, the 20 Simputers print nearly 30,000 bills every month and in Bhoomi, 200 village accountants use the machine in five districts of Karnataka to gather information on land records.

Linux-powered handheld Simputer, combines the functions of an organizer and an MP3 player, and has handwriting recognition capabilities. During its inception at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), where four of the seven founders of the Simputer Trust originate, over 100 Simputers were installed for trials within the campus. It did activities as diverse as creating a database on birds to monitoring wireless radio equipment on ships.