TARAhaat’s expansion in Punjab has been funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) since September 2002 with a purpose to establish TARAkendras in Punjab with the capacity to deliver information, products and services in the rural areas of the state. The project has now been in existence for 18 months, with a total assistance of US $466,000 from USAID. Its primary objectives have been :

USAID has played a crucial role in enabling Development Alternatives and TARAhaat to carry out experiments, extensive capacity building work, and focused planning which were critically needed to fulfill the core objectives of the project. This period has been extremely significant in the history of TARAhaat as during this period we have laid down a strong foundation for the organisation and refined the entire business system ensuring a promising future.

TARAkendra for All

TARAhaat’s expansion program has been extremely active in the past few months. The rapid pick up in expansion is now possible due to the deployment of a dynamic and customized infrastructure to support TARAhaat field operations, which due to its complexity took longer to develop than anticipated. With the three territory offices in Punjab now fully functional and scouting for local talent to take up TARAhaat franchises, efforts are being taken to increase outreach of the territory management. Key personnel of the Territory office are being stationed to strategically important locations, which are geographically distant from the territory office. This will help the field staff to scale up existing operations by reducing the travel time, cost and increasing access to a wide range of the local communities.

With the sophisticated systems and processes in place, complimented by an expanding portfolio of services, TARAhaat is accelerating the recruitment of new Franchisees. We anticipate that once past the early stages of the learning curve, there will be an acceleration of new franchisee recruitment. Meanwhile the community mobilisation activities have generated positive responses and the results have been encouraging. The database of social and economic information on TARAhaat members is rapidly expanding and in time will provide valuable information for sale to institutions. Strategic alliances with established, like-minded organizations were initiated during this period. Renewed efforts were made to involve local schools, health centres and public agencies with TARAhaat’s range of services.

A large part of the first year had been devoted to finalising the plan of the TARAkendra network, designing menu of content, and developing the capacity of TARAkendras to deliver various products and services. A major problem area was the availability of quality personnel. However, TARAhaat has overcome the problem and field teams are now equipped with professionals of the highest standards.

The experience in Bundelkhand showed that having good products and services does not always guarantee success. It is also important how you market them—you must make your presence felt in the area. To that end, a number of promotional activities and outreach programmes were held in the last year—Jeet Sako to Jeet Lo, Health Camps, TARAchetna and TARAmeljol to mention a few. However, these activities and programmes had one common objective—to bring a change in the lives of the masses. They were targeted to promote creativity of learners, increase women participation and create awareness among the common people. A huge turn out in each of these programmes inspired TARAhaat to do these activities on greater scales in future.

TARAhaat started to roll out in Punjab in September 2003, after keeping all the chips in place and the results started showing immediately. The last five months have seen the opening of 14 TARAkendras, three of which in the first week of June. What is the secret behind this success? "The business model is unique. It gives a franchisee a lot of freedom so far as the finance is concerned. You pay as you grow. They have a large number of products, which cater to various target sectors and give the franchisee a greater outreach. Multiple revenue generation system ensures the profitability of the Kendra. They also have a strong support system which not only makes the work easier for the franchisee but also gives psychological assurance," says Parveen Kumar Sukhija. A former Centre Manager of NIIT, Parveen left this national brand and opted for TARAhaat. He opened a TARAkendra in Kotkapura in March this year. The Kendra has already witnessed 80 registrations in various courses and a much greater number of students are awaiting admission.

In the last two years, several nationally reputed IT training institutes have shut down their operations in the smaller towns of Punjab. This had created a negative impact among people who wanted to venture into education business. Initially, the image people had about a TARAkendra been that of being just one of the several local educational institutes mushroomed in the area. However, extensive marketing and promotional programmes shattered the myth and people started realising the multidimensional activities of a TARAkendra. The objective of TARAhaat to build TARAkendras as education-cum-community centres has got a strong foundation in Punjab and the story of Parveen testifies to that. People have realised that the TARAkendra is not just another centre that provides quality education but a platform that helps them realise their dreams.

However, the story of Parveen does not end here. Inspired by the success of Kotkapura centre, he goaded his friend Ankur Sayal to take a franchise at Faridkot. Parveen will act as the chief mentor of this centre.

Puneet Devgan and Ankush Parashar, the franchisees of the Nakodar TARAkendra have an equally interesting story. They took this franchise almost a year back. The Kendra started making profits from the very beginning and has been giving Puneet and Ankush a steady income. They are now planning to take another franchise at Shahkot.

These are not stray success stories but the outcome of a long process that demanded a lot of hard work, dedication and commitment. Profit generation for franchisees has always been the focal point of TARAhaat’s activities. Initially, lack of awareness and low acceptance level thwarted the smooth functioning of TARAkendras. The situation has changed to a large extent in the last couple of months and all the sweat and toil of the last two years has started paying its dividends.

The number of franchise enquiries has constantly been rising with the increasing numbers of young and motivated local citizens expressing an interest in TARAhaat’s concept and challenge. The Hope Incubator Program "Banoge businessman?" ("Do you want to be a businessman?") Campaign was initiated to attract local youth and physically challenged individuals, as Franchisees.

The new franchisees and field staff are being trained extensively to deliver TARAhaat services to the community. Such trainings have helped the franchisee to understand and implement the well-structured systems, which increase their operational and marketing efficiency, while positioning them more solidly as community and business centres within their local markets.

The success of TARAhaat as a premier institution for learning, community activities and socio-economic development will widely depend on its acceptance in all the strata of the society. Keeping this in mind, the focus now is to develop customised products and services that would satisfy the needs of users of different categories. TARAgyan, the education wing of TARAhaat, would come up with several target-specific courses in the next few months, like ABC of Computers (a 1.5-2 hrs automated course for beginners), Web Designing, Advanced English (a course for IELTS aspirants or for learners of equal standard), etc.

Besides new educational courses, there are several other products in the pipeline, like yellow pages for all the towns TARAhaat is working in. A pilot information collection on Yellow pages has recently been started in Sangrur and will be completed soon. Once it is complete, information for other areas will also be collected.

Another important focus area is the website. The website of TARAhaat, available in Hindi, English, and Punjabi, has been acclaimed for its rich content. It is a goldmine of information on various topics, including agriculture, health, education, law, environment, governance and livelihoods. The availability of local information in local languages has made life easier for people in rural and peri-urban areas. Local information in local languages is regularly included in the website. A ‘My Webpage’ service will be launched soon, which will give the local people, particularly businessmen and job aspirants, an opportunity to make their presence felt online.

TARAhaat believes that this is just the beginning and it still has a long way to go. The network must continue to expand if the company has to achieve institutional sustainability. New products and innovative mechanisms to provide services are still needed to capitalise from the enormous needs and opportunities that exist in rural India. The need for innovation and risk taking is essential if programmes such as TARAhaat are to deliver the benefits of development to all and not just the few.

TARAhaat’s expansion process has begun accelerating. In the coming years, the number of TARAkendras is anticipated to increase rapidly. For TARAhaat to proceed with the expansion program, we also recognize the need to refine and enhance this infrastructure to ensure that it is both low touch and dynamic to ensure that it can absorb the rapid expansion in both the network and in the products and services supported by it. We continue to face problems of being pathfinders rather than followers and have no previous and emerging models to guide these development efforts.