Comprehending rural market environment

Rural markets are gold mines paved with thrones. With mammoth size of 833 million populations residing in 640867 villages, rural India offers huge untapped potentiality for any marketer. There is wide disparity in village population range from less than 200 to more than 10000. The main occupation of majority of rural population is agriculture and allied activities that signify main source of income. Rural consumers spend more on food items as against urban counterparts who spend more on non-food items. About 54 percent of rural households possess telephone, 46 percent possess bicycles and 33 percent possess television. Central and State governments invest massive amounts on rural development through several programmes. At this juncture, a modest attempt is made in this paper to comprehend rural market environment through rural population growth, villages by population range, occupation, income and expenditure pattern of rural population, rural households by possession of assets and rural development programmes. Key words: Expenditure, hinterland, income, mammoth, villages.