When India Fell for a ₹251 Smartphone That Never Existed!

The beginning of 2016 was an interesting time for technology in India, the country was about to see the digital revolution, Jio was just right there to be introduced, the country was about to be the second largest mobile market in the world. Many Indian brands like Micromax were in their retirement era, the market had a wide variety of smartphones coming in and subtly getting dominated with multiple Chinese brands such as Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and honestly getting a smartphone around this time meant shelling out a minimum of a few thousand rupees.

But, BAM! To everyone’s surprise, with the cheapest smartphone in the world’s tag, enters an Indian phone named ‘Freedom 251, priced at an unbelievable ₹251 only. Seriously, the cheapest shirt at Sarojini is costlier than that! It was a Ringing Bells Private Limited production, launched with a splash, invoking the 'Make in India' spirit like a patriotic film trailer. The pitch was simple, the price was insane, and the aam janta went absolutely bonkers.

The Real Story: Whitener and a Whole Lot of Fraud

If you want to know what happened to it in one line then: It was a massive Jugaad wrapped in a Ponzi scheme.

The moment the prototypes were handed out to the media, the truth was out. The phone was allegedly a rebranded Chinese handset, the Adcom Ikon 4, which originally cost around ₹3,600. Ringing Bells had simply used white correction fluid, yes, Whitener!, to cover the original branding and stick an Indian flag sticker on the back, pretending to be a desi product. The irony is: even Adcom threatened to sue them!

People already started to get suspicious after an investigation by government officials revealed that the phone did not even have a Bureau of Indian Standards certification. The Indian Cellular Association (ICA), were quick to call out the bluff. According to their calculations, even after factoring in every possible subsidy and cost-cutting measure, a 3G smartphone with the promised specs (1GB RAM, 8GB storage, dual camera) could not be manufactured for less than ₹2,300. The ₹251 price point was mathematically impossible, a pure marketing gimmick to lure in pre-bookings.

The Aftermath: From Dream to Domain Expiry

Ringing Bells claimed a few small deliveries to save face, but the millions who pre-booked or registered got nothing. The company collected money, but the phones never materialized. The controversy became so huge that the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative had to officially distance itself from the project.

The promise of Freedom 251, which could have been a game-changer for the Digital India vision, ended up being a serious setback, breeding distrust in homegrown startups. Mohit Goel, the man behind all of this, was later arrested in 2017 following FIRs from distributors alleging fraud. In a plot twist straight out of a bizarre Bollywood movie, he has popped up in subsequent years in connection with other alleged scams, including a ₹200-crore dry fruit trading fraud.

Ringing Bells vanished into thin air, their domain name expired, and the phone that was supposed to revolutionize connectivity became a symbol of betrayal.