Today, the SHG concept is assuming a very significant role in the development of our country, particularly in poverty reduction. Hence, it becomes all the more important to identify the challenges faced by the SHGs and try to mitigate the same. However, excepting a few concerned organizations, most of the Indian corporates see the rural market as just a big opportunity to sell their products.
India is a big country and its vast rural markets remains untapped. So it's time to tap into the rural markets by creating exclusive brands that will suit the rural set-up, to sell the wares ranging from a small sticker bindi, to soft drinks, to junk food, to textiles, to telecom, to automobiles, to earth-moving equipment, seems to be the thinking of these corporates. Fine! There is a huge potential and the path breaking pioneers can have and keep it all. True!
Let there be a vast potential and let there also be a capability to absorb all the tantalizing temptations. But, what about the flip side? There also exists a huge potential for rural products not only in rural India, but also in the urban areas. How and when will the mindset, which is fixated on the idea that only material from urban areas should be marketed in rural areas and not vice versa,change? Out of about 1281 million households, the Indian urban population is estimated to be only about one-fourth of the total population, leaving about three times that of urban population in India, in the rural areas of the country. So, how does this huge population sustain, that too, in a very dynamic economic scenario?
|
