Kedia Info plans to open SDC in every district of AP

Speaking to Business Standard, Ashok Kumar Kedia, the group CEO, said: "At present, we have two SDCs in Andhra Pradesh. In a bid to make AP a model state, we also plan to open an SDC in every district of the state in the near future. We are now looking for mission partners to set up state-level EDCs and district-level SDCs to cater to the growing cardholders."

KIL, a listed company in the Bombay Stock Exchange, has been offering B2C (business-to-customer) solutions and ATC (at the cash counter) e-solutions through the eTran DigiCash expenditure plan.

The expenditure plan is an interactive system of people participating and recording all their commercial (cash) transactions on an eCommerce platform to harness mutual benefit by earning cash points in a digitised environment. The cardholder earns DigiCash points on every purchase which can be spent and redeemed.

The concept is similar to the bonus or loyalty points earned by using a Petro Card, but here, after a one-time investment of Rs 2,300 on enrollment, the cardholder continues to accumulate bonus points on every purchase, forcing him to plan his expenditure. The card works both online and offline and has a capacity of 8,000 transactions to be stored in EPROM (a black box in the ATC machines).

The group CEO said, "In the first phase, which was initiated in August 2001 with an investment of Rs 20 crore, we had set up 730 ATC machines and 17 enterprise development centres (EDCs) across the country. We upgraded the ATC machines with technology imported from Korea which can enable services to smart card technology and magnetic strip technology for various applications used by the banks, ATM cards, prepaid phone cards, provisional stores, clubs etc."

Kedia said that KIL is trying to expand the eTran members' reach by widening its network and exploring new horizons for redeeming the loyalty points, such as in booking of train tickets, power bill, water taxes etc.

"We had tied up with a local hospital in Coimbatore. With the cost of hospitalisation on the rise, the card member would probably get some breather on the bill from the bonus points earned. We are also planning for similar tie-ups in other states as well," he added.