Organized Retailing in Rural Areas

Abstract

Even after independence, Indian economy is still being dominated by agriculture sector and the major reasons behind this: (i) its contribution in food grain production which is consumed by both rural and urban market and (ii) self-employment. Rural India accounts for roughly 70% of the population where 6, 38,000 villages and 593 districts consist of 742 million people.15% of rural population lives in 20,000 large “non-urban” areas with population more than 5,000 people. 63% of rural population lives in villages of 1000 to 5000 people. Remaining 3, 90,000 villages have fewer than 1000 people accounting for 22% of the population. There are some major players in rural retailing to cater the need of Rural Population. They are (1) DSCL - Hariyali Kisan Bazar (2) ITC - e-choupal and Chaupal Sagar (3) Godrej - Aadhaar (4) Kisan Seva Kendra (5) HUL Project – Shakti.