Bangalore: The prices of Dell computers and notebooks in the Indian market have been reduced by six per cent following the recent exemption of excise duties on PCs.

The government''s initiative to completely exempt PCs from excise duties will allow the company to pass on the significant savings to customers in the subcontinent, a Dell release said. These savings are available to Dell''s Indian customers because of Dell''s build-to-order, direct model.

Because the company Dell only builds a system once it is ordered and sells directly to customers with no middleman, there is no inventory or backlog to sell through before offering the savings delivered by the new tax codes, the release said.

Dell imports all its products from Penang, Malaysia.

The general manager for Dell India, Dinesh Pai, said: "This again proves that the Dell direct model is about efficiencies that allow us to react to market situations fast and bring added value to our customers.

"For our Indian customers, there has never been a better time to buy from Dell. We are happy to be able to offer a six per cent reduction in list price on our entire range of desktop systems, notebooks and workstations with immediate effect."

A Dell OptiPlex 170L with a 2.80-GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, 128MB of memory and a 40-GB hard drive that had a list price of Rs 45,820 before the duties changed can now be purchased directly from Dell for Rs 43,071. Similarly, the Dell Latitude D505, a thin and light notebook, will now be available at Rs 71,182 onwards as against the earlier starting price of Rs 75,725, the release said.

These reductions are available only to customers who are billed in Indian rupees and for orders placed from Wednesday onwards.