About 75% of India’s population lives in62000 villages and nearly, about 62%of villagers earn their livelihood through agriculture and still resist on it as their main occupation. India’s growth story in various sectors such as-industry, services, mining and power particularly since the dawn of new millennium has not been inclusive because rural areas are yet not developed. No sign of growth and development is seen. Government has started various schemes, one of them named MNREGA; for the upliftment of people belonging to lower sections of society.

Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojana for making-up of rural roads, Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Viduyutikaran Yojana for rural electrification has been started and nearly 30% of it has been achieved. On the other hand, development of basic infrastructure for connectivity, marketing and adequate means of employment generation can be seen in urban areas. Much emphasis is laid on the urban areas as compared to rural areas.

To see INDIA in the list of developed countries, the first and foremost thing, which has to be overcome, is poverty. Alleviation of poverty will increase the standard and capacity to buy, which in turn will lead to growth and prosperity. BIMARU states such as- Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh are still in grab of poverty. The other areas where need of management arises for growth and development of rural areas are as follows:-

· Low Income

· Food problems

· Illiteracy

· Health issues

· Unemployment

· Gender inequality

· Living standard

These problems can be overcome by adopting suitable strategies ; for this we need to focus on agriculture because all these issues are related and they are also inter-related.

“To Manage Is To Forecast And Plan; To Organize Is To Command, To Co-Ordinate And To Control.”-

Henry Fayol

With the help of management, the concept of rural Marketing has been evolved and evaluated for bringing in growth, prosperity and development in rural areas, by eliminating poverty and over-dependency on agriculture. Rural marketing means marketing of as well as delivery of manufactured products and services to the rural producers (the demand for which is basically a derived outcome).

ROLE OF RURAL RETAILING:

Retailing is the final phase of distribution channel. It means making of goods and services available and their distribution to the ultimate consumers. The study on buying behavior shows that rural retailers influence 35% of purchase decisions.

India has huge and sustainable growing rural markets that can be tapped effectively through innovations; therefore, sheer product availability affects the decision of brand choice, volumes and market share.

RURAL MALLS:

Chaupal sagars one of the first organized retail forays into the hinterland. Rural malls are actually a warehouse for storing the farm produce. This has been set-up by ‘ITC’, the major business division of tobacco in the state of Madhya Pradesh, as a rural shopping mall cum information centre. First of its kind was set-up at 400 odd kilometers distance from Bhopal at Sehore. The aim was to create a high quality ,low cost fulfillment channel for reaping the benefits from the rural markets and creating a barrier for ne and prospective players.

E-CHAUPAL:

It was launched in june,2000:as the backbone of rural malls because this provides important and necessary information to the farmers like forecast of weather, prices and also serves as a platform o sell the farm produce and purchase of household goods. This has covered 4000 villages thereby reaching 4million farmers.

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS:

(a) Setting up of Chaupal Sagar- Helps in controlling cost and better use of space thereby providing convenience and familiarity with target customers.

(b) Concept of E-Chaupal- Helps in providing information like price of commodities through internet.

(d) ITC has tied up with agri-institutes to offer Farmer training programmes.

(e) Developing retail channel-Through Sanchalaks, ITC offers their own brand products and other as well like-Parachute, Philips, etc.

CONCLUSION:

The prime goal for developing rural areas has laid emphasis on improving the quality of life, removal of poverty, ensuring self-employment, wage employment programmes, better infrastructure facilities, and decentralization of power to make Panchayati Raj Institutions effective. Indira Awash Yolanda has provided home to homeless, MNREGA has given employment to unemployed for period of 100 days, subsidies have been allowed to purchase food and allied products at lowest price ,maintaining the quality.

Adult education and free education to the children unto primary has been made compulsory. Necessary funds are allocated to this programmed by World Bank in the name of “Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan”. Therefore, we can easily say that there is need of management in every sphere of life.

Reference:

A text book of Management by VSP Rao.

A Review Magazine of NIMS

Received on 03.12.2013 Modified on 15.12.2013

Asian J. Management 5(1): January–March, 2014 page 77-78