The Calcutta-based company, which reported a turnover of Rs 72 crore last year, also aims to become an Internet service provider.Chairman and managing director Santosh Rateria said Computech has set up a new company, Vedantha.com Worldwide Ltd, that will be an application service provider.

To fund its expansion plans, Computech is planning private placements and equity dilution to mop up Rs 47 crore. In connection with this, the company made its three-year financial projections public.

However, the management did not give any details as it is still holding talks with a couple of domestic and foreign firms. Equity dilution will be between five and seven per cent after the private placement.

Rateria said that the company has tied up with US-based Bell Incorp for sourcing processors for the PCs. He reasoned that withlow computer penetration in India, the main focus is to market the low-end machines, the technology of which is two years old. All the machines will have colour monitors, 64mb RAM, Rateria said.

He said that the company will be marketing 233MMX Intel processors initially and after six months start marketing 266MMX followed by 300MMX after another six months. Keeping with the two-year old technology, prices can be maintained within manageable limits, director S Roy Chowdhury pointed out.

The company plans to start marketing its PCs from August onwards and hopes to sell 3,000 each month. Of this, 60 per cent will be low-end PCs, Rateria said. According to a statement from the company, the company is targeting markets in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and Philippines, which in turn will boost its export sales.

It projects an export turnover of Rs 32 crore in fiscal 2000-01, which is expected to increase to Rs 48 crore in fiscal 2001-02 and Rs 64 crore in the following fiscal of 2002-03.

Thecompany's turnover fell to Rs 72.38 crore in the last fiscal to March 31, 2000, against Rs 77.58 crore in the previous fiscal of 1998-99. This is due to hiving off its transport agency and trading activities in other areas.However, despite its turnover declining, the company's net profit went up by 58 per cent to Rs 16.81 crore in fiscal 1999-2000 from Rs 10.63 crore in the previous fiscal.

Rateria said that the company has earmarked Rs 30 crore investment over the next four months. Of this, Rs 14 crore will be for software, Rs 8 crore on hardware and another Rs 8 crore for its ISP business. The company announced that its has been granted B category licence and will start operations in Calcutta in the next two months.

After starting ISP operations in Calcutta, the company will operate from Guwahati, Siliguri and Rourkela. However, the money spinner of the new outfit Vedantha.com will be as an ASP.

Its Enterprise Resource Planning solution "ERP CORE" needs to be upgraded to make it Web-centric andinclude customer relationship and supply chain management. For this, the company has tied up with US-based Pacific Expotech Inc.

Rateria also announced that all employees according to their rank will get sweat equity in the company for which the management has earmarked 49,000 shares of the company.