Monday, January 8, 2001		Article

E-rupees — the new Net currency
By Naveen S. Garewal

Tired of paying for your Net connection, phone bills and computer upgrades? Here is your chance to make some money on the Net. An Indian portal, netwala.com, has come out with a "make money" option that has proved very successful in the West. For every e-mail message that is sent using the netwala.com account, you earn one e-rupees and after a few months can make online purchases from your e-rupee account.

The site claims that you can use this virtual money for buying real products. A true win-win situation! And all just for free after you register. The company claims that for double benefits, you can use the that you get upon registering. This card can be presented while shopping at the stores that are affiliated to netwala.com. Using this special you are even entitled to special offers besides earning free e-rupees for ever rupee you spend.

Once you register with netwala.doc you get a bonus of 500 e-rupees in your account, besides the personalised e-rupee card along with the opportunity to earn and spend valuable e-rupees, free e-mail, and the Lucky Draw! "You can use this powerful card to earn valuable e-rupees every time you shop, dine or watch a movie at any one of our shop ‘n Earn member establishments," says the management of netwala.com.

All netwala.com members automatically get considered for daily lucky draws that could be anything from 10,000 e-Rupees daily or 1,00,000 e-Rupees monthly just by sending e-mail! "We put the Internet in every wallet!" claim the promoters of the site.

In the My Account section of netwala.com you can actually be able to track your e-rupee account balance. You can see how many e-rupees you’ve earned and spent and you can get detailed information for each transaction.

The shop ‘n’ earn section tells you all about its member establishments where you present your netwala.com card while paying and get special offers as a privileged customer. You can find out the member establishments by selecting the city, areas within the city and the product you are interested in. In Chandigarh there are 165 member establishments.

The netwala Community section of the site is the Interests’ forum, where you can share views and seek opinion of people with similar interests and experiences. These mini-communities include education, sports, culture, book club, hobbies, etc.

The products that can be shopped through the site include electronics, houseware, health and fitness equipment, sports goods, toys, stationery, confectionery, books, gifts, etc.

In the Buzz section, you can read stories in different media sites and newspaper sites by clicking on the headlines. While, in the netwala partner section you can look up the cyber cafés in your area. You can even become a netwala partner or recommend one through this site.

An interesting site that has is a combination of e-commerce, Web portal and many other concepts of the Internet weaved in. The single most attractive feature of the site, however, remains that you make money while using this site.