BharatMatrimony.com to reach out to rural Andhra via eSevas

Chennai-based BharatMatrimony.com is planning to expand its reach in the rural areas of Andhra Pradesh through rural eSevas.

The matchmaking portal currently has about two million registrations across its 14 regional domains and is looking at other diverse media also to reach out to prospective customers.

eSevas are one-stop centres that save citizens the bother of running around departments for payment of utilities bills besides other services like issue/renewal of trade licences.

Following the success of eSeva centres in the urban and semi-urban areas of the state, the Andhra Pradesh government had planned to set up around 6,000 rural eSeva centres in the form of touch-screen kiosks by December.

Speaking to Business Standard, BharatMatrimony.com CEO Murugavel Janakiraman said, "There has been a good response from rural areas for our matrimonial site. Talks are underway to facilitate registration and payment through rural eSevas."

The portal currently enables registration and payment at Sify Iways and eSevas in the cities, besides online payments through credit cards.

"We have a fortnightly matrimonial magazine for South Asians in the US called Desi Match Maker and another Tamil monthly magazine called Vazhkai Thunai, for matrimonial classifieds. There have been talks regarding launching an Indian magazine on similar lines also, but nothing has been finalised as yet," Janakiraman said.

Desi Match Maker has a circulation of 30,000 per month and with about 500 advertisements per month, our earnings from the magazine amount to $30,000, he added.

BharatMatrimony.com also came out with'Matrimony on mobile' service, a year ago. "About 30,000 members have used this service so far and the number is growing by the day," Janakiraman said.

"We recently launched a wedding directory service also, that enables apparel store owners, caterers, jewellers and other marriage related service providers to advertise on our site," Janakiraman said, on the sidelines of a press conference organised to launch 'Veriprofile' service for its customers.

Any member of BharatMatrimony.com can initiate verification of a prospective life partner or self for a sum of Rs 250 on details regarding name, age, income, marital status, address, family background and blood group.

"The verification will be done by Onicra - a credit rating agency, within a period of seven days," Janakiraman said, adding that the stamp of verification will give credibility to a profile.

"BharatMatrimony.com currently has about 200 million page views per month and TeluguMatrimony.com gets about 500 new registrations per day," said T Thulasi Rama Rao, regional manager, BharatMatrimony.com.