Preparing a business proposal, booking tickets and taking care of the hospital visits of aged people at home are no longer stressful jobs for busy professionals, thanks to personal secretary services launched by a city-based firm.

With a view to serve busy professionals and those on the move, Nirmitha Professional Services, a part of the Nirmitha Group, has launched a new 'my-secretary.com' division that will enable individuals hire a secretary to help them in their day-to-day activities.

The company has tied-up with Reliance Telecommunication to provide a single point contact phone number, 33443333, on which the secretary would be available to take requests.

Services are offered under four broad categories -- 'professional', 'hospitality', 'travel and transportation' and 'miscellaneous' -- to cater to the needs of diverse individuals.

These services range from picking up guests from railway stations or airports, managing family events and giving reminders about important occasions and anniversaries to arranging a plumber, carpenter, mason or electrician.

According to company Chief Executive Officer Sankar Venkatraman, an engineering graduate and a Sloan Fellow from London Business School, the concept was developed on the premise that personal secretaries should not be limited to only senior management personnel.

"I was thinking why only the senior executive in an organisation has a secretary. It will be always helpful to anybody if there is a secretary (to assist in his day-to-day work)... By appointing a secretary, you would be able to focus on routine work and use the time effectively," he told PTI here. .

"Even a customer who needs to book a movie ticket or needs to be reminded about an important work can use our secretarial service. Our people here work from eight in the morning to eight in the night," Venkatraman said.

A customer can opt for services from three different packages as per their requirement, Venkatraman, who has been in the IT industry for over two decades and has rich experience in general and strategy management, said.

According to him, the concept is slowly picking up in India, while in developed countries, particularly in the United States and some European countries, such services are offered at a cost of USD 30 to USD 40 per hour.

"We are offering it at less than Rs 30 per day. In fact, since the launch of this service on August 19, we have already got more than 26 subscribers, who include CEOs and individuals," he said, adding "Non-core (business) of people will be the core (business) for us".

Venkatraman said they maintain a database in which the customer's service requests are securely maintained.

He said the company has 30 members in the logistics team, who would be always on the move, with GPS devices installed in their vehicles.

On future plans, he said the company would extend the services to Bangalore, Hyderabad and had set a target of covering 7,500 customers.

He said they are currently working on a similar platform exclusively for the student community, which is expected to be rolled out in the next two-three months.