City link

The census data indicated a growing interest among residents in using online platforms to shop,connect and find out more about their city. “Chandigarh did not feature in last year’s top ten,but this year it has seen a quantum leap,” Sharat Digumarti,Head,Categories,eBay India had remarked when the data came out. Poonam Dhillon,for example,launched http://www.chandigarhwallahs.com,a social networking portal that connects Chandigarhians all over the world. “I left Chandigarh more than 30 years ago. I studied at Carmel Convent and lived at Sector 9. My fondest memories belong here,” says Dhillon. “I kept bumping into people from Chandigarh all over the world,realised that many of them would like to reconnect and launched this city-specific portal,” she adds. She was assisted in this venture by Sandeep Goyal,chairman,Dentsu India,Prof Avaninder Chopra of Chandigarh DAV College and Anil Talwar of Talwar Jewellers. The site lists the city’s hotspots,has booking options and even allows one to sport a Chandigarh badge.

In his Sector 22 office,Dev Chawla,meanwhile,is hard at work,developing his Chandigarh-specific portal. “LookMyCity (www.lookmycity.com) will have an interactive platform,providing news and information on celebrities,politicians,business leaders and other achievers. It will address the lack of information that plagues smaller cities,” says Chawla,the group chairman of LookMyCity. Dinesh Rawat’s merachandigarh.com,started about three years back,aims to provide the city news online. “While merachandigarh.in deals with city news,merachandigarh.org talks about organisations and merachandigarh.com maps the news,” says Rawat. “Thanks to this portal,15 international students are being able to do research on Chandigarh,” he adds.

That apart,Chandigarh has a devoted community on Orkut,bloggers writing on handigarhbloggers.com and thousands of fans on Facebook’s ‘I Love My Chandigarh’ community. Twitter’s meet-up groups near Chandigarh have also started working.

One of the oldest websites,ww.chandigarhcity.com has been running since 2000. “More than city folks,people from the rural areas of Punjab,Haryana and those abroad who are curious about the city and logging on to know more,” says owner Mohnesh Kohli,a Megrisoft employee. “Gardens,temples,directory,regular updates—our site has it all,” he adds. Anil and Bimal Sharma are two brothers who developed a city-based website,chandigarhcity.info,when they failed to find sufficient information about the city. “Even food delivery numbers were missing. Our portal has category-wise info,online yellow pages that covers government schemes,notifications,bans,rules and other updates,” they say.

And,if you’ve happened to miss your loved one’s birthday or anniversary,fret not. Quickly log on to chandigarhflorist.com and brighten up the day.