Video conf gets a boost in North

Seeing the potential of video-conferencing in the northern region, Reliance Webstores Ltd (an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group firm) is planning to add nine centres for video-conferencing, especially in tier III cities of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, taking the total to 28 in this part of the country, indicating that information technology is picking up in even small cities.

Further, these cities will be high growth centres for Reliance Webstores.

At present, Reliance Webstores is the only player in Punjab offering video-conferencing through its webstores.

Speaking to Business Standard, Reliance Webstores Ltd circle head Sundeep Saksena said: "Over a period we are getting overwhelming response not only from multinational firms but from common people. Seeing this, we are in the process of opening webstores in Sangrur, Gurdaspur and Ferozpur. In Haryana, we will open such facilities in Bhiwani, Rohtak, Palwal and Yamunanagar. Besides, we will open one centre each in Shimla and Jammu."

Experts say although this service is in its infancy in the smaller cities, with the passage of time it will gain popularity.

Curently in Punjab, Reliance Webstore has VC facility in 8 cities like Ludhiana, Amritsar, Patiala, Barnala, Bathinda, Malerkotla etc. The facility is available in nine cities of Haryana "" Ambala Cantt, Ambala City, Panipat, Karnal, Sonepat etc "" while in Chandigarh the company has two locations where it has VC facility.

Commenting upon response from northern region, he added, "Video Conferencing service was initially used by the multinational corporates for interviewing prospective outstationed candidates but over a period of time we have been able to reposition this service which is more frequently used for new product launches, sales meet and induction programmes in the region. Couple of court cases are also being done through Video Conferencing. Last year court like arrangements were made in Jalandhar Video Conferencing room wherein Video conferencing was held with the London Court. Apart from that live surgeries are being performed by renowned doctors overseas and it is shown to doctors in reliance world . Further Punjab being an NRI territory; at times couple of families visit reliance world and celebrate their birthdays or any other occasion so that their close relatives living abroad can see it,feel it. "

It is evident that opening of VC facilities in smaller cities is not just for the corporate but has the ability to touch the lives of the common man.

Also, organisations are saving time and resources while recruiting employees and make a difference in the output of the organisation.

Apart from this, Video Conferencing are also used for Matrimonial Purposes, quit a few VC's have been held wherein the bride and the groom living in distant locations interact with each other and their families through the means of VC.