Penetration in Rural Market: Private Players Enigma

The rural market in India constitutes 740+ million people, and is by far the largest potential market in the world. More than 600, 000 villages of India house two-thirds of its people, and earn one-third of the national income. The rural consumer has become more aware, concerned, and has added considerable purchase power to his disposal. A report by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in India shows that rural consumers represent more than 50 per cent of consuming classes and are the prime target market for consumer goods and essential services as education, healthcare and employment. Despite such an open market, around 68% of the rural economy still lies untapped.

The paper is an endevour to study the private players enigma to penetrate in the rural market. The study is conducted in major villages of eight districts of Gujarat state selected for the study on the basis of potentiality and area of operations. The sample size consists of 500 respondents taken from the villages having population between 2500-5000.

The collected data is edited, coded, tabulated, grouped and organized according to the requirement of the study. A simple and appropriate statistical tool (viz. SPSS, statistical software package) is used by the researcher for testing the hypotheses and drawing conclusions.

The data is analyzed and interpreted using some basic techniques like percentages, bar plots, pie charts and also included advanced techniques like Chi-Square test.