S. No.

1
Rural Marketing
(For Class Circulation Only)
The rural promise

HOW does a manager deal with a market where Iodex is used not only to ease sore
muscles but also as sandwich filling, Horlicks is fed to buffaloes and hair dye is used to
paint them? Believe it or not, these are only some of the innovative uses products are put
to in rural markets, which are now appearing on the radar of corporates that find little left
to sell in the urban ones.
This and more was the subject of the seminar on `Challenges of Rural Marketing in the
21st Century' organised by The Rural Network, an alliance of rural marketing (RM)
organisations, in Bangalore last week. It had long been the lament of R. V. Rajan,
Chairman and Managing Director, Anugrah Madison Advertising Pvt Ltd, one of the
partners in the Network, that companies paid only lip service to RM. But this year he is
upbeat. There are more companies expressing interest, more firms dedicating teams and
some money to the rural markets and more open-mindedness about re-learning marketing
lessons. Though large-scale RM is a long way away, a beginning has been made.
The new rural
One issue that the seminar threw up was that rural India was not so rural after all. At
least, many of the clichs one associates with `rural' largely poor, illiterate, gullible,
agrarian don't hold good anymore. While 75 per cent of the rural population is
engaged in agriculture and contributes half of the total rural income, the remaining 25 per

cent non-farm rural sector contributes the other half, which makes it richer. This also
means that the monsoon doesn't exert the same kind of influence it used to on buying
habits earlier. There are the developed rural areas, the developing rural and the underdeveloped rural.
A potential gold mine
MART, the specialist rural marketing and rural development consultancy has found that
53 per cent of FMCG sales lie in the rural areas, as do 59 per cent of consumer durable
sales, said its head Pradeep Kashyap at the seminar. Of two million BSNL mobile
connections, 50 per cent went to small towns and villages, of 20 million Rediffmail
subscriptions, 60 per cent came from small towns, so did half the transactions on Rediff's
shopping site.
According to a study by Chennai-based Francis Kanoi Marketing Planning Services Pvt
Ltd, the rural market for FMCG is Rs 65,000 crore, for durables Rs 5,000 crore, for
tractors and agri-inputs Rs 45,000 crore and two- and four-wheelers, Rs 8,000 crore. In
total, a whopping Rs 1,23,000 crore. This could be doubled if corporates understood the
rural buying behaviour and got their distribution and pricing right, he said.
Rural India buys small packs, as they are perceived as value for money. There is brand
stickiness, where a consumer buys a brand out of habit and not really by choice. Brands
rarely fight for market share, they just have to be visible in the right place. Even
expensive brands, such as Close-Up, Marie biscuits and Clinic shampoo are doing well
because of deep distribution, pointed out Kashyap. And many brands are doing well
without much advertising support Ghadi, a big detergent brand in North India, is an
example.
Mostly myth
Companies harbour a lot of myths too about the rural market. It is a diverse population
spread across a vast country, speaking different languages, with different levels of literacy
(and now, new literacy, conferred by TV) and composed of big landlords, traders, small
farmers, marginal farmers, labourers and artisans.
Disposable income is not low. Per capita annual income in rural areas is Rs 9,481; in
urban, Rs 19,407, but remember, in the rural areas, hardly anybody pays home rent,
spends money on drinking water or on primary health care, so the disposable surplus is
really high, said Kashyap. And the number of middle-class households is 15.6 million in
rural areas, and 16.4 million in urban, which is not such a big difference.
It's also not true that individuals decide about purchases, it's a collective decision though
the influencer, decision-maker, buyer are often different, so marketers would do well to
address themselves to several levels.
Media reach

According to N. D. Badrinath, Vice-President, TNS India, rural India can be a

"happening" place. Why wouldn't it, if a rich farmer in Karnataka's Mandya district buys
a vacuum cleaner just because one of his peers did, or a trucker in Kolar district found it
necessary to explain the finer points of F1 racing to his friends? Or if a sugar co-operative
in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district asked Hero, TVS and Kinetic to stage a competitive
demonstration so that they could order 400 mopeds?
Stating that rural India was seen as a media-dark place, he said the yardsticks applied to
study urban India could provide pointers to rural India too: demographic profiles in the
readership survey data, estimates of number of readers of different publications for each
demographic segment, audience size for TV channels, radio stations, cinemas, haats,
melas, number of users of FMCG or consumer durables, where buyers are concentrated,
where they are not, where they buy, and so on.
To home in on pockets of wealth, he advocated the benefits of identifying and studying
socio-cultural regions. Talk to the rural yuppie, he said, explaining that males in the 15-34
age group in SEC R1 and R2 are the decision makers of the next few years in households
with high purchasing power. They are mobile and exposed to the winds of change from
outside their villages.
The seminar also recommended exploiting the existing infrastructure in villages to the
hilt for brand building: 70 per cent of R1, R2 and R3 can be reached through mass media,
post offices and postal stationery could be used, so could the weekly melas, mandis and
haats; marketers could explore tie-ups with the public distribution system and bank
branches, direct mail could be sent to opinion leaders, and word-of-mouth publicity could
be built through local service providers such as retailers, barbers and tea-shop and dhaba
owners.
Many speakers pointed out that statistics showed rural India was moving rapidly from
poverty to prosperity. In this context, marketing consultant Rama Bijapurkar said rural
India was morphing and leapfrogging beyond agriculture and that marketers need to
adopt new mental models to view these audiences. There is a mixture of many stages of
development, so a "zero-base, macro-consumer look at new rural India" was necessary.
Needs blood and sweat
Kartik Raina, Chief Operating Officer of Dalmia Consumer Care, which successfully
marketed its Vardaan tobacco-free bidis in rural areas, said the problem was that "many
people who worked in rural marketing actually worked!" RM is all about execution, not
ideas. Sadly, all RM programmes begin and end with cost, with no talk of the results, he
said, adding that RM was all about building a business. RM is a marriage, not a flirtation;
execution time has to be 80 per cent, idea time 20 per cent, if you don't have the guts,
don't do it, have the skin of an elephant and the heart of an evangelist, was his advice.
The empowerment mantra

TTK Prestige's K. G. George, head of the retail business, spoke about how the company
achieved some success in retrieving market share in the South by tying up with women's
self-help groups and NGOs in Andhra Pradesh to market its pressure cookers. The
company is still perfecting a replicable model to adopt in other States whereby it can
empower the rural people by providing them with some money and itself achieve its
business goals. A cooker brand exclusively for the rural areas is on the drawing board.
On the role of IT in RM, J. Ravindra Kumar, head of research in ITC's International
Business Division, spoke of how the eChoupal initiative gave farmers the power of scale
and better bargaining power when it came to selling their produce and buying agri-inputs.
It de-linked information from transaction and bestowed the freedom of choice on the
farmers, he said, adding that it led to higher income from higher yields, better quality and
lower transaction costs.
Distribution dilemma
Distribution, considered a great challenge, posed a big problem, said V. Swaminathan,
Managing Director, Suhita Ethnic Marketing Services. When it comes to demand, there is
a big mismatch between the rural consumer's expectations and the viability of a local
retail point. In the supply aspect, company policy conflicts with making a product
available closer to a rural consumer. It was cheaper for a rural/semi-urban consumer to
buy durables in a city because the margins given to a big retailer there were better than
those given to a distributor closer to home, he said. Also, converting a big dealer into a
distributor was fraught with problems as the former was tuned to improving volumes and
getting incentives on that basis whereas they should be based on parameters such as reach
and distribution to new outlets and markets, he said.
Urban-rural divide
On communicating to the rural consumer, brand domain specialist and marketing expert
Harish Bijoor said advertising was easy, but that RM was "donkey's work." It was unfair
that the urban-educated community of marketing managers ruled the rural majority in
marketing terms; it is "urban hegemony." He also questioned the utility of market
research how would extrapolation of results from a small study work in a country as
diverse as India?
Communication gaps
Anugrah's Rajan emphasised the need for a specific, rural communication programme.
RM is not just van operations, he said, adding that an integrated RM programme using
mass media and below-the-line activities was necessary. He told Catalyst that though an
RM programme did not cost much, corporates' compulsions of having to report profits
every quarter put paid to any such good intentions. Rural audiences did not understand
fast-paced, gimmicky, hi-tech commercials; regional brands were much more savvy at
marketing to rural audiences their ads reflected the rural ethos and corporates would
do well to take a leaf out of their book, he said. He, however, acknowledged that some

companies, such as Coca-Cola had got it right in its Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola ads
they were a hit with both the rural and urban markets.

R. A. Patankar, Managing Director of Sampark Marketing and Advertising Solutions,

another partner in the Rural Network, who specialises in rural advertising and event
management, said that folk song-and-dance forms worked well though there was a
gradual shift in the way messages were being communicated.
The seminar also took note of other problems that the rural markets faced: the lack of
electricity which made it difficult for marketer to build brands or sell consumer durables,
the prevalence of spurious brands, the maturity of rural consumers in certain areas which
rendered folk forms or specific rural communication anachronistic, a reliable method to
evaluate the impact of on-ground brand building events, the ostensible success of such
events when they take place which, however, do not translate into sales in the rural
outlets but in towns.
The mood, however, was optimistic. The number of delegates outnumbered expectations,
and didn't dwindle as the day wore on. A number of corporates, such as Glaxo
SmithKline Consumer Healthcare, are eyeing rural markets and negotiating RM
programmes. Commitment may take a while but there is the growing realisation, dinned
in by all the speakers, that one should be in it for the long haul. It will be interesting to

watch the strategies city-slick, urban corporate India adopts to endear itself to rural
markets in its quest for greater fortunes.
Network at work

FOR the Rural Network, the first ever but "informal alliance" of the country's leading
rural market organisations, it's time to pat itself on the back. It is getting noticed, as its
growing involvement with FICCI shows last year, the trade body organised a
conference on rural marketing in association with it. Its plans for a mega conference this
year have crystallised into a Rural Marketing Summit at Mumbai being organised by
FICCI this October, where the Network is being billed as the knowledge partner. And the
four partners have seen growing demand for advice and training in rural marketing, and
are scenting greater business opportunities too.
Says R. V. Rajan, Chairman and Managing Director, Anugrah Madison Advertising
Service Pvt Ltd, a partner, "Our second year of existence (2003) saw each partner getting
referrals through the others. This proves we've made a dent, and also that corporates are
taking rural marketing more seriously than before." The other partners are the Delhibased MART (headed by Pradeep Kashyap), Pune-based Rural Relations (Pradeep
Lokhande) and Mumbai-based Sampark (by R. A. Patankar).
The basic objective of the Rural Network is to get clients who are looking for a national
strategy in rural marketing and provide help in executing it across different regions with
local expertise. Anugrah, based in Chennai, specialises in rural strategy and
communication and has the skills to conduct campaigns in several languages. MART's
strengths are rural research, strategy and distribution. It has to its credit many rural
marketing projects, including Hindustan Lever's Project Shakti. Rural Relations' forte is
rural customer relations management and it has a huge database of opinion leaders in six
States. Sampark is engaged in managing rural van operations and other events. In the last
two years, the partners have handled assignments from Tata Shaktee (roofing), Monsanto,
Colgate-Palmolive and Coromandel Fertilisers.

The Network is also planning an association of firms involved with rural marketing, on
the lines of the Advertising Agencies Association of India. These could be advertising
agencies, event management companies and vendors of various services. A directory of
all these people, including van operators, folk artistes, wall painters and such who can be
used to promote products in rural areas, is on the agenda.
Research is a priority. The Network, which has been conducting small research studies,
would like to take up big projects. As a pioneer in the field, it is also involved in
educating clients and management students about rural marketing. The seminars and
workshops it organises are part of this effort. There have been disappointments, too. The
Network's plans to start courses in rural marketing in Chennai didn't take off due to poor
demand but over time, and with the money the partners salt away whenever they can, it
plans to offer a larger course with a diploma and the promise of placement. If corporates
took up rural marketing programmes on a large scale, the Network as a unified entity
would probably have had more business, composed as it is of organisations from various
parts of the country, says Rajan. However, Kashyap of MART does not see it as a
disappointment. "It is not a concern that business for the Network must grow right away.
The important task is to create awareness of the need for a special rural marketing effort
among corporates. Business will follow in its own course," he says.
(Sravanthi Challapalli, Business Line, Aug.12, 2004)

S. No. 2
Rural Marketing
(For Class Circulation Only)

Reaping gains from greener pastures

The rural buyer has always been a country cousin. To him, buying a consumer durable
has invariably meant catching the next bus to the nearest town. While manufacturers of
consumer expendables like Hindustan Lever Limited and Procter and Gamble have
always had some kind of a vision for the rural buyer, lack of electricity in rural areas
deterred the makers of consumer durables. The result only watches and radios sold well
in the rural belt. According to Indian Markets Demographic Report 1998 brought out by
the National Council of Applied Economic Research's (NCAER), ``rural penetration
levels are generally lower than urban penetration levels of consumer expendables.
However, the rural urban differentials are not generally as pronounced as in the case of
consumer durables. There were exceptions as in the case of health beverages, cosmetic
products like shampoos, nail-polishes and lipsticks...''
In 1995-96, rural households, which form 71.7 per cent of the total households in the
country accounted for only52.2 per cent of ownership of durable goods. The average
number of durable goods owned by rural households was only three, compared to seven
in urban areas.
``Lack of electricity infrastructure is the single major factor explaining the rural-urban
differential in penetration of consumer durable goods...'' says the NCAER report.
But this attitude has begun to change, especially after the economic slowdown. Since
urban incomes are not growing as fast, whereas farm incomes have continued to rise,
many companies today believe that they can't ignore the rural market if they want to
grow. In fact, companies today are designing products especially for the semi-urban and
the rural buyer. For instance, LG Electronics India Private Limited (LGEIL) launched its
Sampoorna range of colour televisions in mid-1998 with on-screen display in Hindi.
Earlier this year, the company introduced Sampoorna CTVs with Tamil, Marathi and
Bengali on-screen display. This way, LG has taken care of 70 to 75 per cent of the
Indianpopulation.
Recently, LG also introduced the Indian cooking menu in its microwave ovens to makes
things easier for techno-phobiacs. Even though the market for microwave ovens will be
minuscule in rural areas, an easy-to-understand microwave oven still stands a chance
over others. And this strategy has paid rich dividends and LGEIL today is a Rs 500 crore
turnover company, as against a turnover of Rs 125 crore in the calendar year 1997.
Eicher Motors Limited (EML) registered a 107 per cent growth in profit before tax in
1998-99. This, when the commercial vehicles industry had been going through a very
rough patch. According to S. Sandilya, Managing Director, Eicher Motors bucked the

trend essentially because the company chose to focus on segments that did not feel the
heat of the economic slowdown. In the rural market, Eicher focussed on the milk and
poultry segment for incremental volumes. ``We modified our 1090 LCV to suit the needs
of the poultry segment,'' Sandilya said. For instance, EML's lightcommercial vehicles are
suited for the transportation of eggs since they fit snugly in the rear deck. There is better
air circulation in these vehicles and broiler chicken does not go bad even after 400 km to
500 km of run.Besides, EML has modified its LCVs to suit the needs of schools and
hospitals. ``Recession or no recession, children would still go to schools, clinics would
still require vans and therefore, we decided to concentrate on these segments,'' Sandilya
adds.
Product modification is not always required. For instance, 68 to 70 per cent of Daewoo
Motor India Limited's (DMIL) sales come from semi-urban and rural areas.
``Manufacturers have grossly underestimated the rural market,'' says S G Awasthi,
Managing Director, DMIL. According to him, priorities, aspirations and lifestyles are fast
changing in rural India. ``From the very beginning, we chose not to ignore the rural
areas,'' says Awasthi. And with the launch of its small car -- Matiz -- semi-urban areas
have become all the more important forDMIL.
The other Korean chaebol -- Samsung India Electronics Limited -- has also chosen to go
rural. According to R Zutshi, Vice President, Sales, Samsung India, ``since the
penetration levels are very low in India, and more so in non-metro areas, companies are
increasingly focussing on semi-urban markets to tap latent demand.'' Samsung India is
targeting 10 per cent of its total sales turnover or Rs 90 crore from semi-urban markets. It
has launched 14 inch and 20 inch basic colour television models especially for the rural
markets.
Its competitor, LG Electronics' strategy appears somewhat similar, but more focussed. At
present, 25 per cent of LGEIL's sales come from rural areas (as defined by the census
survey). And by the end of this year, LGEIL hopes to increase this share to 35 per cent.
According to Rajeev Karwal, Vice President, Marketing and Sales, LGEIL, ``since the
very beginning, our idea was to push similar quantities in large geographical areas rather
than concentrating on some high-incomebelts.''
Both Samsung India and LG are positioning their semi-automatic washing machines and
direct cool refrigerators in rural areas due to erratic electricity supply. Both the companies
have introduced mobile vans that showcase their products and make the rural consumer
aware of their brand.For the rural segment, instead of having a company-dealer-customer
distribution chain (as in the urban areas), LGEIL has introduced a distributor (who is
invariably into FMCGs) to facilitate wider penetration. Samsung participates in local fairs
to spread brand awareness.
``The rural buyer is today the most misunderstood and uncared for,'' feels Karwal.
According to him, its the marketeers' prerogative to go to them and understand them. For
instance, he feels that the shoe manufacturing MNCs would have done far better had they
redesigned their products to suit the needs of farmers and marketed them aggressively in

rural areas. ``Doesn't the rural consumer require rugged and durable shoes,'' he questions.
He is alsoof the view that consumer electronics manufacturers should start focussing on
black and white televisions, fit them with car batteries, and sell them in the rural markets.
According to the NCAER's latest quarterly update, higher rural demand resulting from
good agricultural performance is expected to be the main pillar supporting industrial
growth in 1999-2000. So it seems that the rural consumer may finally start getting his
dues, as more and more `glocalised' brands head towards the farms in search of growth.
(SWATI PRASAD, June 21, 1999)

S.No. 3
Rural Marketing
(For Class Circulation Only)

The great rural goldrush

"Even I thought it was another Fevicol ad!

But they're all marketing men out to capture
the rural sector, it seems."
How can urban India find the key to the rural market?
A COMPANY wanted to market its toothpaste in rural areas. The minty, foaming product
didn't find favour with the paan-/tobacco-chewing populace. Moreover, they questioned,
when the company said sweet stuff was supposed to be bad for teeth, why was the paste
sweet? The rural communications specialist the company took on did a trial project by
getting the same market to sample a version of the toothpaste with less mint, less sugar,
less foam and instead of a tube, put it into a box this time to address complaints of
wastage. It worked well, but the company chickened out from taking it further as it was
chary of the effect on its established brand image.
Thus went another great idea down the drain. This is a typical failing among many others
- companies that get into rural marketing often don't have the spunk, the commitment, the
patience, the foresight or the willingness to part with money but think of it as a magic
treasure chest that will supply them with the lolly. Well, no show, folks, it takes all this
and a lot more doggedness for tangible results, said all those who spoke at a seminar on
rural marketing organised by the Rural Marketing Agencies Association of India
(RMAAI) and Ad Club Madras.

Rajkumar Jha, National Creative Director, O&M Outreach, who recounted the toothpaste
story mentioned above, believes that while marketers may profile people in terms of
geography, culture, occupation or community, they all ultimately are consumers. In a
presentation on the melting rural-urban divide, he said there is nothing called rural or
urban and that consumer behaviour is defined by how people act when they buy.
For many products, the consumer is similar, urban or rural, but it is other factors such as
affordability, that change. Also, he pointed out, many rural stereotypes were not true. To
illustrate, he said that much of the Hindi that passed for Bhojpuri in many Hindi films is
not to be found anywhere except in the film studios of Mumbai. Also, movies that purport
to reflect a rural atmosphere, such as Lagaan, make a hash of their attempts in buttressing
that - the film had 16 people from the same village wearing dhotis in 11 regional styles;
all characters wore an amulet, meant to reinforce rusticity; though it was set in Gujarat,
the language used was "spoken nowhere" and homes contained a tulsi plant stand, which
was a practice prevalent in the coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, he said.
There were rural consumers in urban areas, like those who came into big cities to find
work, and vice versa, Jha said, adding that it was mentality and not locality that mattered.
Also, with growing urbanisation, rural consumers were becoming aspirational and
companies had to find a way to cater to that while keeping availability, pricing and
quality in mind, he said. In this connection, he added that names which were aspirational
would work better rather than supposedly pan-Indian names which were mostly Hindi.
He mentioned the need for communication tailored to the experience and expectation of
target audiences. In urban areas, for instance, a shampoo may connote bounce and beauty,
and a toothpaste may imply confidence and girlfriends but in not so sophisticated
markets, marketers are better off being straightforward about the products' purpose, he
said.

He emphasised the need for cost-effective and scalable media activity to inform, educate
and create an identity for the brand. Painting walls with an advertisement is common to
towns, cities and villages, shop fronts and shutters serve as ad space in all these areas, the

Dubai and Singapore shopping festivals were the city equivalents of the village haats
(periodic markets), so what's so rural about all this, he questioned. The difference, he
said, lay in creating a unique media mix with content suitable to the target market. "Rural
communication is not an ATM," he said, adding that companies had to invest in it for a
better harvest, take stock of mindsets, awareness and familiarity and then go about it
rather than have their eye on sales from the very beginning.
In his keynote address, Pradeep Kashyap, Managing Director, MART (Marketing and
Research Team), said the rural market presented as many advantages as it did challenges
to the marketer.
Brands rarely vie for attention because a shop in a rural area usually wouldn't have
place for too many SKUs (stock-keeping units)
They can build a strong rural base without much advertising support (like Chik and
Ghadi, the shampoo and detergent brands). This could be due to product design and
benefits as well as due to self-sustaining distribution/marketing models
Expensive brands too can do well - contrary to popular belief, rural consumers
believe in value for money and do not buy cheap products (Close up toothpaste, Marie
and Tiger biscuits and Clinic shampoo are doing well due to deep distribution)
Disposable surplus is not low in rural markets because the people there don't usually
pay rent or spend much on food as grain and vegetables are from their own fields/homes.
The number of middle-class households (those having annual income of Rs 45,000-2.15
lakh) are almost equal at 15.6 million in rural areas and 16.4 million in urban areas.
Another opportunity lies in making effective use of the infrastructure: 3.8 lakh public
distribution shops, 1.38 lakh post offices, 42,000 haats, 32,000 bank branches, 25,000
melas (exhibitions) and 7,000 mandis (agricultural markets).
The rural market poses challenges of penetration and of increasing rural income, which
will lead to market growth. Large-format rural retail stores such as DSCL Hariyali and
Warnabazar, as well as IT initiatives like ITC"s e-choupal will help make inroads into
rural markets, Kashyap said. As the bottom of the pyramid constantly aspires to more and
subsequently earns more, it would make sense for companies to capture this segment and
breed brand loyalty which they could capitalise on once the lower segments progressed to
the higher reaches of the pyramid.
Corporates need to hire professionals from rural management institutes such as Institute
of Rural Management Anand and Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar,
organise rural sensitisation training for managers and explore new distribution models, he
said.
Self-sustaining and low-cost distribution and brand building moves came in for much
discussion in the seminar. Involving local youth to participate in these ventures was seen
as a viable model. Kashyap mentioned Colgate's experiment involving volunteers trained
under the Nehru Yuvak Kendra Sangathan. On behalf of the company, MART hired 500
rural promoters at a stipend of Rs 1,800 per month to promote and distribute its products
at haats and other village shops in the vicinity. The margins made on the sales would go

to the promoter too. This not only served the purpose of distribution and penetration for
the companies but ensured high credibility and good rapport with the local consumers as
the promoters were local people. As against a typical rural marketing operation involving
vans which cost Rs 3,000 per day, this model cost the company less than Rs 3,000 per
month, he said.
R. V. Rajan, Chairman and Managing Director, Anugrah Madison Advertising, said that
in his experience, he had found that the database built up by companies in their pilot
projects was hardly put to use, an observation other speakers agreed with. While some
thought the quality of data was "stupid", others said companies did not know how to mine
the data. Also, the data had a decay period, so the interval between collection and
utilisation had to be drastically narrowed, they pointed out.
Rajan also touched upon the issue of measuring the success of a rural marketing
initiative. Referring to his agency's work for Shriram Transport Finance, where lorry
drivers aspiring to own vehicles were personally invited to a marketing programme, he
said an event's success should be judged on the quality of the crowd and not on its
strength in numbers. A good rural marketing programme had to ensure word-of-mouth
publicity was generated, he added.
Another issue discussed with much fervour was the lack of access to knowledge.
Institutions offering courses in rural marketing and management were few and far
between and in others, the subject was offered as an elective, which assured no one would
opt for it, said an aggrieved delegate. He also lamented that management schools were
not keen on utilising specialists in rural communication, such as executives of pesticide
or fertiliser companies. The issue of creating a demand for rural management courses also
came up.
With 742 million people and market in FMCG and durables exceeding the size of the
urban market (along with agri-inputs and two-/four-wheelers, the market size is Rs 1.23
lakh crore), it is a potential goldmine corporate India's citizens are sitting on. Whether the
gods will bless them depends on how willing they are to help themselves.

(Business Line, Aug 04, 2005)