Diwali 8212; Time for e-fireworks

VADODARA, Nov 4: Commerce student Dinesh Vyas rummages through heaps of Diwali greeting cards for his sister in Canada. All through the e...

VADODARA, Nov 4: Commerce student Dinesh Vyas rummages through heaps of Diwali greeting cards for his sister in Canada. All through the exercise, Vyas is perturbed by the feeling that his card might not reach his sister in time for the festival.

A way out is not very far as he walks into a cybercafe barely a few metres away from the card shop at Fatehgunj. Vyas is astounded to see the plethora of fast and colourful options available to him to send an impressive message to his sister.

Cashing in on the craze for e-mail, cybercafes in Vadodara are announcing more and more attractive schemes to grab a majority of the Diwali greeting market.

Some cybercafes have slashed their rates per hour, some entice the customers by offering surprise gifts and some others provide voice-mail facilities.

Says Himanshu Patel of Business Icon, 8220;People want to take advantage of this effective and fast medium of communication now available to them. We are offering schemes for the benefit of the users.8221;

For Diwali, Patel has fixed discounted rates for students. The rates are Rs 10 for 15 minutes, Rs 20 for 30 minutes, Rs 30 for 45 minutes and Rs 35 for an hour. Besides, he would provide electronic greeting cards with customised message for Rs 10, five minutes free to check for E-mails, messages in Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Marathi besides the conventional English language. On Diwali day, e-mail accounts can be opened for free at Business Icon.

With an increase in demand, competition is bound to be stiff between the 20-odd cybercafes in Vadodara. Not lagging far behind is WEB-VISTA at the Old Padra road offering a musical greeting for just Rs 15.

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Patel admits that lucrative schemes are vital to grab the major share, this is the reason why he has announced to give a surprise gift to one of his Diwali day customer.

Another cybercafe operator in Alkapuri has announced block-wise discount charges for the users. So, the charge for 15 hours of browsing will be just Rs 375.

Some operators have initiated a scheme to teach its customers to design the cards they send. The slashed rates to learn graphics would cost between Rs 1000 to Rs 1200. According to the operators they are expecting about 40 per cent increase in the business during the next fortnight due to Diwali.