Match-making now is quality business

Kaakateeya Marriages is the first to get ISO 9001

Match-making services now come with a quality tag. Kaakateeya Marriages Private Limited, a city-based marriage bureau has got an international quality standard certification ISO 9001:2000. Incidentally, it is the only match-making company in India to have been given this certification.

According to Yalamanchi Chiranjeevi, managing director of Kaakateeya Marriages Private Limited, an international agency ICL Certification Limited awarded this certificate "for implementing standard systems, quality services and maintaining records as an objective evidence of implementation of systems."

The audit was carried out in the areas of management, commitment, planning, responsibility, quality of human resources, infrastructure, work environment, etc.

Established in 1981, Kaakateeya today has 25 branches with 300 employees. Its branches are spread over Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It has a database of over 70,000 people with it and its Hyderabad branch alone has 20,000 registrations.

Around 90 per cent of the 600-odd match-making services in Hyderabad and Secunderabad and 2,000-odd in Andhra Pradesh operate from home. Chiranjeevi, therefore, appealed to the state government to introduce match-making as self-employment training.

Incidentally, many private institutions have already started offering diploma in wedding management and wedding planner courses today, a press release said. However, with the growing size of the industry, universities may also start offering courses in wedding management and match-making.

The Indian wedding market is estimated to be worth Rs 50,000 crore, while the Andhra Pradesh market has been put at Rs 8,000 crore.

In the twin cities alone, according to Solus Wedding Guide, nearly three lakh arranged marriages take place in a year (excluding registered marriages and marriages held at religious places). Besides, families in the twin cities spend around Rs 2,000 crore per annum on wedding jewellery alone.