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Two young men from Bidar have developed an application called Bidar App, a multi utility portal that will help residents of the city access services by public and private agencies and businesses.

"It is not just an online telephone directory. It is an aggregated service provider," says founder Sheikh Atif Ashar, a computer engineer who quit his job in an IT firm to come back to his home town of Bidar.

Akash Dasari, who is still studying engineering, is the co founder. They are now working on developing a mobile application based on the portal. They are also extending the data on the portal by including information from across the district, including taluk head quarters.

"This will help users order food online or find workers such as plumbers or carpenters," says Atif. By tying up with a super market, they are successfully running a door delivery project. While the portal remains free for the users, the founders plan to collect fees from the businesses who want to be listed on the site.

The portal has details of all government departments and important officials in the city. Users can view the addresses and phone numbers of officers in the deputy commissioner's office, police department, city municipal council, zilla panchayat, Teheshildar office, RTO and other important offices.

The portal also has a lot of data regarding private businesses in the city, shops, eateries and food outlets with take out facilities, garages and mechanics, electricians, provision stores, plumbers, carpenters and other professionals. It has a list of schools and colleges, with details of addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. Professionals like engineers, doctors, lawyers, tutors and sports coaches, have some space reserved for them for their bio data.

"We will have a section where all the services can be rated by users. This feed back will help future users," says Akash. Apart from the listings, the site has a comprehensive search option that picks out phone numbers based on letters, words or phrases used by users. "We have used advanced software tools to build the site," Akash said. The engineers have formed a ten-member team to address customers queries.

"We have been updating the information for a year now. We don't take information from websites. We go to each enterprise, meet its owner and seek his details. In the future, we will also provide business to business tie ups and help entrepreneurs work with each other. We are hoping to approach some investors and raise some capital," said Mr Atif. For more, visit www.bidarapp.com