| TARAHaat |
TARAHaat.com is a web portal designed for people of rural India. It offers a variety of services like weather forecasts, current commodity prices, e-mail service, educational opportunities, government schemes, medical or career advice for just a few rupees worth of net connectivity. It currently offers these services in 3 different Languages namely, English, Hindi, Punjabi.
But that is not all. For the rural India to advantage of this portal it finances franchisee outlets called TaraKendras. These TARAKendras are Kiosks that provide rural people a means to access the services of TARAHaat.com . These outlets provide a source of income to the franchisee by charging the villagers a nominal fee for accessing the Internet. As for the services of the web portal, they are completely free of cost. Where local connectivity is not available, TARAhaat provides access via C-band satellite.
TARAKendras take anywhere between 1 to 3 Lakhs. The franchisee also receives banking support, training in running the centre and technical support. Franchisees charge users according to rates laid down by TARAHaat. To simply access the Internet or send/receive e-mails, users have to pay 10-35 Rs.
The minimum requirement for becoming a franchisee is that one must be educated at least until 12th Standard. Also for support services to be made viable, there must be at least a cluster of at lest 20 TARAKendras in any particular region.
According to TARAHaat, the Kendra or Kiosk will be able to pay for itself in 8 to 9 months. A franchisee would recover initial capital investment in 2 years.
Currently there are 20 Kendras in Punjab and 10 in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh.
Contact :
Development Alternatives :
Development Alternatives
111/9-Z, Kishangarh
Vasant Kunj
New Delhi - 110070
Tel : 91 (11) 2613-4103, 2689-0380
Fax : 91 (11) 2613-0817
Email : tara@devalt.org
TARAHaat :
TARAhaat Information and Marketing Services Limited
111/9-Z, Kishangarh
Aruna Asaf Ali marg,
Vasant Kunj
New Delhi-110070
Tel : 91 (11) 2612-2881, 2612-2882
Fax : 91 (11) 2612-2896
Email : tarahaat@tarahaat.com