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TARAhaat:
The Year Gone By
T ARAhaat is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Company, established by the Development Alternatives Group, to connect the rural community to the national economy and the rest of the world.TARAhaat has pioneered the concept of rural and small town franchising, wherein the entrepreneur makes the entire financial investment to set up the local franchise. TARAhaat provides the capacity building, products and services required by the franchise to be profitable and the revenue earned is shared between both of them. Presently, there are approximately 141 Kendras in the States of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Uttarakhand. The going is good and we are now about to take our first step towards Rajasthan.
The franchised internet-enabled kiosks are run by village-level entrepreneurs, who are carefully selected and trained to provide high-quality, cost-effective services. TARAhaat provides full capacity building and resource mobilisation support at the beginning, as also whatever continuing technical and marketing support the franchisee requires. The franchise fees and revenue shares (royalty) are the major contributors to TARAhaat’s operational income, providing strong incentives for both the company and its franchises to perform and generate profits. Most rural entrepreneurs attain positive cash flow within six months and full payback within two years. A number of TARAhaat franchisees - many of them had started during the pilot phase - have been running profitably for more than 5 years now. Additionally, TARAhaat also provides a query response system for farmers, called the Lifeline Project. Field executives reach rural areas and cater to the problems faced by farmers through mobile phones. The key objectives fulfilled by TARAhaat are: • Increasing employability: Increasing the employability of rural youth through vocational training and placement services in association with companies such as Microsoft, Samsung, etc. • Bridging gaps in information: Providing citizens and local businesses with easy and affordable access to government and financial services through e-governance and e-commerce initiatives and also enabling the government to reach out to formerly inaccessible audiences with public service information on vital issues such as public health, hygiene, family planning and various other social welfare services • Promoting rural businesses: Enabling national and multinational businesses to access village markets and allowing them to generate accurate behavioural data, advertise their products, market them through local dealers or through the Internet, and manage their supply chains efficiently TARAhaat operations over the past years have amply demonstrated the existence of many value-adding, profit-generating products and services that are of direct interest and within the purchasing power of farmers, local businesses, students, housewives and indeed almost all the groups in a normal village. As it grows, TARAhaat will provide an ever-widening variety of services including: • Internet-based services through kiosks such as e-health care, e-commerce, e-governance and e-entertainment • Training institutes will be established at the heart of the target market of TARAhaat, acting as a knowledge hub for rural areas, providing basic and advanced courses throughout the year to rural entrepreneurs and the trainers employed by entrepreneurs to teach at their centres. Call centre facilities will be provided at these centres so that people can get firsthand experience of a work environment • Placement service offices at the regional and the head office level will create the required network with companies to provide easy access to jobs for the youth who will take courses at the TARA Kendras. Performance in 2008-09 The performance of TARAhaat has improved in the year 2008-09 when it earned the highest revenue ever. To further increase its revenues, TARAhaat has adopted certain operational methodologies which can ensure secure and speedy revenue generation. Apart from the vision of revenue growth of 58% in the year 2009-10, TARAhaat is also devoted to minimise its expanses in an endeavour to become self sustaining. Network Growth It is also understood that network growth is the key to success and TARAhaat is primed to increase its network size from 128 to 236 running centres in the year of 2009-10 and further expand this network size up to 800 by the year 2012. New Products and Promotions TARAhaat has upgraded its few course contents and also launched two new courses on ‘Diploma in Computer Application’ and ‘Diploma in Financial Accounting’. Both these courses have gained appreciation from business partners and showing incremental performance. Some more long duration products are under review and will be launched during the year. Simultaneously, an incentive scheme has been launched for the benefit of the franchisee, which is ensuring higher royalty realisation along with franchisee retention. Support and Services TARAhaat has also re-developed a Territory Office Operation Management software called TOTS -2 (Territory Office Tracking System). This software has the facility of incorporating all the changes in business rule, operation policies, etc. The entire TARAhaat’s invoicing system is based on this. It also has better security features and provides access protection for the application as well as allowing far greater flexibility. q Vijendra Gahlot
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TARAhaat
comprises of a network of franchised internet-enabled kiosks in
underserved markets, and a content-rich portal - working in English and
local languages.