you can make a small programmer for F series chips at less than Rs150. PIC chips are sold almost any town like Kochi, Tiruvananthapuram etc, PIC16F628A just costs Rs 70/- or so in Indian currency. see the COM port based schematic designed by DL4YHF with external 15V power supply. it can wonderfully work for PIC16F728A.
microchip mplab and associated files are free for download. Hitech C is also with microchip and is free for limited usage with code lines limited. but you can always optimize.
i feel you get better satisfaction than using hardware based clocks that use mains frequency and the same is never 50HZ and with the power failures troubling the clock..
with micro, you can maintain the clock timing while display can be on when power is there and can be managed to show up under power failure from battery with a push switch, something like that to ensure power saving on battery.
just three cells make up 4.5 and the clock can happily work,