Month: March 2021

With rapid urbanisation and technological advancement, there is a shift in the pattern of consumption of the people in the rural areas. The transition has been studied in light of the objectives which were set at the beginning of the survey. These underlying objectives were to study the- changes in the pattern of consumption concerning the food items like cereals, pulses and beverages, non-food items like clothing, mobile, television and services like beauty clinics, barbers, and private tuitions, medical. Besides, this the gaps in rural markets regarding the availability of various ranges of products, services and understanding the opportunities to intervene.

As the time is changing the earning, consumption and saving pattern of the Indian consumers are also changing. The research made by Centre for Macro Consumer Research (CMCR) of the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) reports that there will be rapid shift of 42% in the income level of the rural households by 2015. This would become possible due to the development in agriculture, and other activities like construction, retail, trading, etc.

There is a huge dramatic change in the rural sector with a change with the shift in the income earnings and the consumption patterns of the rural consumers. But there is a huge disparity between the income generation and consumption pattern among the various states of rural India. Bridging this gap is a big challenge for the marketers and government.

There has been an overall change in the pattern of consumption expenditures made by the households. The consumption pattern has shown its changes concerning different periods of time, as in Financial Year 17-18, five years back and further to this again a ten year back data. Even the type of crops which were cultivated by the households across periods has shown changes. Traditional rain-fed paddy has been replaced by the scientific cultivation of paddy through System of Rice Intensification methods. Besides, changes are also prominent in consumption expenditures made by the households. If consumption expenditure is tracked for respondents, it becomes apparent that the portion of expenditure on food items made during the period FY 17-18 is less as compared to the figures five years back and furthermore for ten years back. Further, to this, the expenditure on items which are like packaged foods, beverages, gutka & Pan Masala shows displays a different trend.

The consumption of liquid beverages was more five years back while it is relatively less now. This can be attributed to the spread of print and social media campaigns which has made the respondents aware of health benefits and ill effects. However, the expenditures have constantly increased over the non-food heads like private tuitions, medical treatment and toiletry, cosmetics as compared to the data of 5-10 years back.

When the attitude of the respondents is captured over their behaviour in the market, it is interesting that the share of expenditure of the respondents on items like furniture, mobile batteries, mobile repair has increased over time.

The number of earning members from a family has also come up recently, the households previously were mostly dependent on one person for income, but now, some earning members are 3-4. The business establishments mostly have found that their returns are high if they run food stalls in Thela and temporary makeshifts selling tea and evening snacks. Respondents, especially the women folk have potential to earn a higher income by taking up vocations around the promotion of traditional skills like weaving.

The occupation pattern reveals the income generation pattern also. From the Table 3.7, we can find out more than 40% of rural people are engaged in agricultural and allied activities. Next followed by the wage earners, salary earners, and small shop keepers and so on. If we compare with urban sector, rural sector hits very little percentage of professionals and businessman.

In contrast, nearly 40% of urban people are earning regular salaries and just 3.45% of people alone engaged in agriculture and related activities. Wage earners and small shop keepers comes in the second and third place respectively which is similar in the rural sector and followed by the artisan, businessman etc.

Marketing can refine entire living style and system. Better quality products at reasonable price, improved income level, availability of facilities, etc., have direct positive impacts on quality of life. Quality of life improves and level crime reduces.

Naturally, marketing acts as catalyst agent for economic growth. There exists more attractive business opportunities in rural than urban. Rural market is more potential for consumer durables and services. Rural population largely depends on agriculture and it can contribute nearly 50% to total national income. Agriculture enjoys significant portion in export business, too. Rural marketing improves agricultural sector and improved agricultural sector can boost whole economy of the country.

The total cultivation area, approximately 74% is occupied by food crops and only 26% is occupied by non-food crops. This situation clearly exhibits the excessive dependence on food crops rather than non-food commercial crops. It is because of the farmer’s attitude towards food security i.e., they used to retain sufficient quantities of production for their own consumption and the rest alone goes – to the market.

Take the food crops such as rice, wheat, vegetables etc., as example whose retention quantity is estimated nearly 50%. In contrast, the entire production of non-food crops goes to the market without noticeable proportion of retention like food crops. For example, almost the entire production of cotton, sugarcane, groundnut, etc., are marketed. This has an implication in generation of disposable income.

In general, large farmers are able to generate adequate disposable incomes because they can grow food as well as non-food, commercial crops with the help of sufficient land holding pattern. But the small farmers are in a position to grow only food crops that too in a little quantity and are able to generate small disposable income.

So, the marketers surely show interest to target the large rural farmers. Anyway this situation is slowly changing due to the introduction of latest technologies in the agricultural sector for the result of high yield such as, high yield seeds, cross-cultured seeds, pesticides, etc.

Land Distribution & Use

One of the main obstacles for marketers to exploit the rural market potential has been the largeness of rural markets in terms of the areas it covered. It is much easier to divide it according to the needs of the urban population because of concentration, but it is very difficult in the case of rural market because of their widespread nature.

Distribution of villages in India:

This clearly shows that rural population is distributed in almost about 638365 villages. It is also noted that villages are not uniform in size. About 42 percent of the villages in India has population of less than 500 people in it.

Irrigation:

Irrigation plays a vital role while increasing the potentiality of rural market. Actually, in agricultural sector, many new technologies were implemented in irrigation only such as energized pump sets and so on to improve the overall yield and economy. To improve the irrigated area, many kinds of investment schemes like minor, medium and major are continuously framed and implemented by the Government.

For example, states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are expected to irrigate about 19 lakh hectares of land from the project Sardar Sarofar Project across river Narmada. We can imagine the prosperity of farmers in these beneficiary states.

The major source of irrigation is wells followed by canals. Nearly about 40% of gross cropped area is from approximately 80 million hectares of gross irrigated area. The important point to be noted here is, still nearly 60% of rural India is dependent on rainfall for their agricultural activities.

Anyway, many steps have been taken and major and medium level irrigation projects also initiated to improve the rural irrigation potential. One more important scheme launched by the Government in the year of 2005 was ‘National Project for Repair, Renovation and Restoration of Water Bodies’.

It mainly focuses on the restoration and augmentation of water bodies storage capacities and recovering and extending their lost potential. ‘Drip Irrigation’ programme was launched to cover more areas under irrigation. Currently, about three lakh hectares are under drip irrigation in various states of India and a great scope to extend this method under the context of shrinking ground water supply.

So, it is very clear that the availability of irrigation facilities leads to the higher technology development and finally results in the increased productivity, income and improved rural purchasing power.

The literacy level of rural people has a considerable impact on the marketing strategies to be adopted by the marketing team especially in communication with the rural people. Higher the level of literacy, the easier it becomes for companies to penetrate into rural areas.

As per the 2001 census, about 50 per cent of the rural population is literate. This has contributed to the increase in rural demand. This has changed the buying behaviour of rural consumers and lifestyles. An increase in literacy levels has resulted in an increase in demand for consumer goods.

From the table, we can make out that there has been a rise in the literacy rate during the last two decades, changes in the literacy rate from 1991 was only marginal. It can be further noticed that only 45 percent of rural people are literate in our country even today.

Although the Central and State Governments have implemented many schemes, severe punishments etc., to stop childhood marriage, keep away from education to girls, killing female child at the stage of birth itself, etc., unfortunately, these customs are still existing in many states of India such as; Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and so on. These are all just because of higher illiteracy level among rural people and particularly lack of literacy level among rural women.

But the rural youth education and literacy level shows a good progress and prosperous rural India. Here, the contribution given by both State and Central Governments to improve rural youth literacy rate is noticeable one. This growth in youth literacy level increases the demand for modern, fashionable, current trend products among the younger generation.

Also, it increases the brand awareness of rural consumers for various products (national and international level). Marketers can make serious efforts to capture these adults’ group (falls in the age group of 20-35), for their products such as perfumes, two- wheelers, western outfits, etc., which accounts nearly 25% of India’s consumption.

Occupational pattern of rural people also has an impact on the nature of income generation, which will in turn affect the expenditure pattern. Purchase behavior of the rural consumers depends upon the nature of occupation and the consistency in the generation of income.

A major section of the rural population relies on agriculture and allied activities for occupation. So, the income in the hands of rural people is very much conditioned by the status of agriculture and other allied activities.

Agricultural and allied activities are the main occupation for the rural people. An allied activity includes Horticulture, Forestry, Fishery, Animal Husbandry (dairy, poultry, and goat), Floriculture etc., the everyday needs of the villagers are also met by many other types of occupations. In rural sector, agri-based occupation can be different types.

The occupations which can be generally seen in the villages are:

1. Farm laborer
2. Milkman
3. Washer man
4. Pot maker
5. Blacksmith
6. Barber
7. Carpenter
8. Cobbler
9. Priest
10. Weaver.

Other rural occupation which are non-agricultural and support agricultural requirements and the rural people in their daily life are:

1. Village doctor
2. Policemen
3. Traditional village nurse
4. Anganwadi workers
5. Teacher
6. Peon
7. Grocer
8. Mechanic
9. Cyber cafe owner
10. Venders
11. Agricultural experts
12. Electricians etc.

Census of 2001 reports that, this agri-based occupational trend is slowly changing and a gradual shift towards non-agri based work has been taken place. As per the NSSO Rounds Survey, for the year of 1999-2000, rural India’s Primary sector workforce accounts for 76.1%, Secondary sector 11.3%, Tertiary sector 12.5% and finally non-farm sector hits 23.8%, which is next to the Primary sector.

Rural housing

Rural electrification

Rural electrification is the process of bringing electrical power to rural and remote areas. Rural communities are suffering from colossal market failures as the national grids fall short of their demand for electricity. As of 2017, over 1 billion people worldwide lack household electric power; 14% of the global population. Electrification typically begins in cities and towns and gradually extends to rural areas; however, this process often runs into obstacles in developing nations. Expanding the national grid is expensive and countries consistently lack the capital to grow their current infrastructure. Additionally, amortizing capital costs to reduce the unit cost of each hook-up is harder to do in lightly populated areas (yielding higher per capita share of the expense). If countries are able to overcome these obstacles and reach nationwide electrification, rural communities will be able to reap considerable amounts of economic and social development.

Productivity and efficiency

In addition to improved education, rural electrification also allows for greater efficiency and productivity. Businesses will be able to keep their doors open for longer and generate additional revenues. Farmers will have access to streamlined modern techniques such as irrigation, crop processing, and food preservation. In 2014, rural communities in India gained more than US$21 million from increased economic activity driven by recent additions of electricity.

Job creation

When expanding the electrical grid, there is a demand for thousands of jobs ranging from business development to construction. Projects to spread electricity create a wealth of job opportunities and help to alleviate poverty. For example, India set a target of 175GW of clean energy to be installed by 2022 to increase electrification throughout the country. An estimated 300,000 jobs will need to be created in order to reach these lofty goals.

Roads for rural marketing

Rural Development is the process of improving the quality of life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas, often relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas.

The term rural development is becoming a buzz word all over the world. As most of the people on earth live in rural areas, development in true sense cannot be expected without addressing the basic necessities of this huge population. In the era of modern science and technology, large amount of population in rural areas are still deprived of adequate nutrition, good education, proper communication, and social justice. Therefore, rural development is gaining importance in both the developed and developing countries.

However, till today, there is no universally acceptable definition of rural development. As a concept, rural development is comprehensive and multidimensional. It means improving the quality of life of the people living in rural areas through agriculture and allied activities. As a phenomenon, rural development is the result of interactions between various physical, technological, economic, socio-cultural and institutional factors.

Rural Development has traditionally centered on the exploitation of land-intensive natural resources such as agriculture and forestry. However, changes in global production networks and increased urbanization have changed the character of rural areas. Increasingly tourism, niche manufacturers, and recreation have replaced resource extraction and agriculture as dominant economic drivers.

The need for rural communities to approach development from a wider perspective has created more focus on a broad range of development goals rather than merely creating incentive for agricultural or resource-based businesses. Education, entrepreneurship, physical infrastructure, and social infrastructure all play an important role in developing rural regions. Rural development is also characterized by its emphasis on locally produced economic development strategies. In contrast to urban regions, which have many similarities, rural areas are highly distinctive from one another. For this reason, there are a large variety of rural development approaches used globally.

Rural development is a comprehensive term. It essentially focuses on action for the development of areas outside the mainstream urban economic system.

Rural development is a complete term that concentrates on the action taken for the development of rural areas improve the village economy. However, few areas that demand more focused attention and new initiatives are.

• Public Health and Sanitation
• Women Empowerment
• Education
• Employment opportunity
• Infrastructure Development (e.g. electricity, irrigation, etc.)
• Facilities for agriculture extension and research
• Availability of Credit

The concept of rural development can be analysed as follows:

• It ensures the increased ability of the poor rural mass to have control over their environment and resources rather than being passive object of external control and manipulations.
• It is a process of building capacities of rural people. The capacity may be build up in all aspects of life which includes socio-economic, cultural, educational and political.
• It also ensures the participation of rural people in all developmental activities. There is an increasing concern all over the world that the poor, the needy, the unprivileged, the weaker section of the society should take active part in development process, so that, they can fully enjoy the benefits of development.

Basic Elements of Rural Development:

Self-Respect:

Every person and every nation seeks some basic form of self-respect, dignity and honour. Absence or denial of self-esteem indicates a lack of development initiatives.

Life-Sustenance:

In order to survive, people have certain basic needs. These basic necessities include food, shelter and clothing. Besides, health care facilities and security are also important needs. Providing these basic necessities to all the people is of vital importance for economic growth, which is a prerequisite for development.

Freedom:

Freedom not only refers to political or ideological freedom, but also freedom from ignorance and superstitions. Man should be free from all bondages and should live in harmony with nature.

Important approaches of rural development taken up in India:

• Community Development Programme:

The community development programme initiated in the year 1952 made an attempt to increase involvement of rural people in development process. It laid emphasis on building of infrastructure in rural areas with the active involvement of people through organizational set up of National Extension Services.

• Rural Development Projects and Programmes:

Rural development projects are micro level efforts to bring about desirable changes in rural areas. However, rural development programmes involve a large number of projects which are aligned to one another, so that; they affect various facts of rural economic and social life. Rural development programmes attempt to bring about changes in a wider areas affecting large number of people.

• Package Approach:

In order to increase agricultural production per se in the country, this approach was adopted. Popularly known as package programme, emphasis was given on application of all improved practices, such as seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, plant protection measures and use of improved agricultural implements. The programme like Intensive Agricultural District Programme (IADP), Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (IAAP), High Yielding Varieties Programme (HYVP) are good example of such approach.

• Target Approach:

The poor, unprivileged section of the society deprived of the benefits from package programme, were selected under this approach. The Small Farmers Development Agency (SFDA), Marginal Farmers and Agricultural Labourers (MFAL) were some of the programmes under this approach.

• Integrated Rural Development:

There is a fair amount of disagreement among the rural development experts in defining the concept of Integrated Rural Development. The rural economy and social structure in most of the developing countries is characterised by widespread poverty, poor health conditions, illiteracy, exploitation, inequitable distribution of land and other assets and lack of rural infrastructure and public utility. Therefore, the problem requires an approach that will take into account all these factors in devising a comprehensive strategy to foster development in rural areas.

• Area Approach:

In this approach, specific areas were targeted for development initiatives. The areas which needs specific attention for certain problems to tackle were selected in this approach. The Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP), Command Area Development Programme (CADP) are some of the major initiatives under this approach.

• Grass Root Level Approach or Local Level Participation in Rural Development:

There is a paradigm shift of approach in rural development in recent times. The efforts are more people-centric and situation specific. It is because of the fact that the problem of the rural areas varies with the situation to situation and problems need to be solved locally using available resources. Hence, ensuring people’s participation in all development efforts is becoming a prerequisite for any rural development initiative.