Abstract

Ranvid Kumar, Amartya Chandra and Ajith Sanjay

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.