Demonetisation: Queries swell at astro portals as Indians get anxious

iZofy, which usually gets around 400,000 visitors a month, has seen a 40 per cent jump in traffic

An unlikely beneficiary of the Centre's demonetisation move are astrological service providers. Queries, on an average, have gone up by 30 per cent since the November 8 announcement to scrap high-value currency notes came in, say players like Ganeshaspeaks.com and others. 

Besides being curious about their own future, Indians have suddenly started taking keen interest in the country's political and economic future as it stands to impact them directly or indirectly.

Heman Arun Pandit, chief executive officer and managing director of Ganeshaspeaks.com said that people coming on to their portal to seek written reports has gone up by 30 per cent or so. 

"From an earlier 5,000 queries a month, we are now handling around 6,000 queries a month coming from people who seek written astrological reports from our website. Also, there has been an 18-25 per cent increase in the number of customers wanting to talk to our astrologers over phone," he said.

Add to this the number of people wanting to hold personal consultations (in person) with the leading astrologers associated with Ganeshaspeaks has also seen an increase post the demonetisation move. 

"We usually do not encourage the personal meeting with our astrologers and also the fees are high for such consultations. However, even that has seen a 5-7 per cent increase,"Pandit added.

Interestingly, while everyone is anxious about their own future, Rohit K Singhania, chief executive officer of iZofy, a one and half year old numerology and astrological services start-up, said that suddenly people are equally anxious to know about India's future.

"We got a lot of queries on whether the demonetisation move would be rolled back, about political situations, even how long Prime Minister Narendra Modi would continue in office. We had posted an article on Modi's strong charts and whether he would remain PM till 2029. We got a lot of queries and responses for that," Singhania said. 

His website, which usually gets around 400,000 visitors a month, has seen a 40 per cent jump in traffic.

Ahmedabad-headquartered Ganeshaspeaks.com gets around 130 million visits across all its properties, ranging from mobile apps, to radio shows, portal, video services etc. Pandit said that going by the queries, apart from the real estate sector, the jewellers are another worried lot.

"People now want to know which would be the more secure modes of investment in the future," he said.

Ganeshspeaks had forecast what they call a 'zero weightage day' around November 9 and 10 as a part of their stock market predictions, Pandit claims. 

He explained that a zero weightage day basically means extremely volatile market conditions, unpredictable movements due to factors that may or may not be financial in nature.