As organised retail in rural India awaits the arrival of Reliance Retail, current majors like ITC, Godrej and DSCL are expanding their retail operations by setting up more stores, entering new states and offering newer product categories. A shift from selling agri-inputs will help these stores target the non-farming segments. It is a little known fact that, while 25% of the rural population is not engaged in agriculture, it earns 50% of the rural income.
When organised retail first made its presence felt in rural India, it wasn’t a pure retailing operation targeting the rural masses. Companies like DSCL and Godrej who had significant agri-business interests, set them up to meet the needs of farmers in a store’s catchments area. A typical agri-input store would have a catchment area of around 100 villages spread over 20-25 kms. Says Ashik Hamid, associate director, Technopak, “These stores are one-stop shops meant to meet the occupational needs of farmers by providing agri-inputs and fertilisers”. These stores, like DSCL’s Hariyali Kisan Bazaar, ITC’s Choupal Saagar etc. tend to be located in small towns that function as procurement hubs where the farmers come to sell their produce. Their earnings are tapped then and there, by getting them to combine their visit with shopping. These stores tend to target farmers with all sizes of holdings, “We build our offerings for everyone, from the farmer owning 20 acres to the one owning 200”, says Rajesh Gupta, business head, Hariyali Kisan Bazaar, “It wouldn’t be done any other way as there is a similarity on the application side, everyone needs the same inputs.”
While organised retail centred on these stores, unorganised retail revolves around the local village shop and the haat. Shops are usually present in villages with a population of more than 500 people. They stock more product categories than what similar urban shops would, but there isn’t much variety offered within a category. Haats are weekly mobile supermarkets that are spread over 2-3 acres of land, with more than 300 stalls, selling anything from animal feed to local medicines.
Where unorganised retail disappoints is in that the goods sold are often spurious and there is no guarantee of quality for many of the goods being sold be it agri-inputs, FMCG etc. The typical shop is cluttered and congested with limited variety and few national brands. Many of the goods are sold at prices higher than the maximum retail price with shopkeepers giving goods shortages, transportation costs etc. as rationale What these stores ended up doing, according to Pradeep Kashyap, the director of MART, is make shopping for the rural consumer a ‘hellish’ experience. This despite the fact that the rural market represents a considerable business opportunity. Technopak estimates that the size of the Indian retail market is at present around USD 300 billion with the rural-urban split in the ratio 55 – 45. The rural market consumes about 53% of FMCG, and 59% of durables in India. Organised rural retail, in recognition of this and other factors, started offering other product categories and services. The earlier focus on agri-inputs helped as it created an entry point into other categories as well. Explains Hamid, “Once the customers began to buy these agricultural inputs and services, they develop trust in the process and become natural customers for the other products too.”
So what are the chances of success with this shift? Not many of these stores were profitable to begin with, according to an industry expert. While many of them may claim on paper to be so, once the property and infrastructure investments are included, not many of them generate the kind of footfalls to be really profitable. For example, at a retail store one dayonly 5 people walked in before 1 pm.
One practical problem they have had to face is the shortage of manpower. Runaway rates are high with employees from urban areas leaving their jobs after being stationed in these rural stores. The long-term solution to this could be the training of unemployed educated rural youth to man these stores.
These stores also have an image problem in that some of them are perceived to be expensive. “The stores are so urban in their ambience, that rural people find it intimidating,” says an expert. Their advertising imagery doesn’t make it easier. A billboard outside one of these retail stores, for example, had a happy urban family dressed in Western clothes. This may have meant to be aspirational in nature but wouldn’t really appeal to a rural audience.
What this shift ultimately represents, though, is the recognition of the potential of the rural market and a change in the perception of rural retail. It also represents these stores becoming less a part of their parent companies’ agri-business and more an independent, market-driven operation.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Indian Rural Market
By M H Ahssan
An Overview
The Indian rural market with its vast size and demand base offers great opportunities to marketers. Two-thirds of countries consumers live in rural areas and almost half of the national income is generated here. It is only natural that rural markets form an important part of the total market of India. Our nation is classified in around 450 districts, and approximately 630000 villages, which can be sorted in different parameters such as literacy levels, accessibility, income levels, penetration, distances from nearest towns, etc.
Few Facts
70 % of India's population lives in 627000 villages in rural areas. According to the NCAER study, there are almost twice as many 'lower middle income' households in rural areas as in the urban areas.
At the highest income level there are 2.3 million urban households as against 1.6 million households in rural areas.
Middle and high-income households in rural India is expected to grow from 80 million to 111 million by 2007.
In urban India, the same is expected to grow from 46 million to 59 million. Thus, the absolute size of rural India is expected to be double that of urban India.
Opportunity
The above figures are a clear indication that the rural markets offer the great potential to help the India Inc which has reached the plateau of their business curve in urban India to bank upon the volume-driven growth.
The Indian rural market with its vast size and demand base offers a huge opportunity that MNCs cannot afford to ignore. With 128 million households, the rural population is nearly three times the urban.
As a result of the growing affluence, fuelled by good monsoons and the increase in agricultural output to 200 million tonnes from 176 million tonnes in 1991, rural India has a large consuming class with 41 per cent of India's middle-class and 58 per cent of the total disposable income.
The importance of the rural market for some FMCG and durable marketers is underlined by the fact that the rural market accounts for close to 70 per cent of toilet-soap users and 38 per cent of all two-wheeler purchased.
The rural market accounts for half the total market for TV sets, fans, pressure cookers, bicycles, washing soap, blades, tea, salt and toothpowder, What is more, the rural market for FMCG products is growing much faster than the urban counterpart.
Features of Indian Rural Markets
Large and Scattered market: The rural market of India is large and scattered in the sense that it consists of over 63 crore consumers from 5,70,000 villages spread throughout the country.
Major income from agriculture: Nearly 60 % of the rural income is from agriculture. Hence rural prosperity is tied with agricultural prosperity.
Low standard of living: The consumer in the village area do have a low standard of living because of low literacy, low per capita income, social backwardness, low savings, etc.
Traditional Outlook: The rural consumer values old customs and tradition. They do not prefer changes.
Diverse socio-economic backwardness: Rural consumers have diverse socio-economic backwardness. This is different in different parts of the country.
Infrastructure Facilities: The Infrastructure Facilities like roads, warehouses, communication system, financial facilities are inadequate in rural areas. Hence physical distribution becomes costly due to inadequate Infrastructure facilities.
The rural bazaar is booming beyond everyone's expectation. This has been primarily attributed to a spurt in the purchasing capacity of farmers now enjoying an increasing marketable surplus of farm produce. In addition, an estimated induction of Rs 140 billion in the rural sector through the government's rural development schemes in the Seventh Plan and about Rs 300 billion in the Eighth Plan is also believed to have significantly contributed to the rapid growth in demand. The high incomes combined with low cost of living in the villages have meant more money to spend. And with the market providing them options, tastes are also changing.
Problems in the Booming Rural Marketing
Although the rural market does offer a vast untapped potential, it should also be recognized that it is not that easy to operate in rural market because of several problems. Rural marketing is thus a time consuming affair and requires considerable investments in terms of evolving appropriate strategies with a view to tackle the problems.
The major problems faced are:
Underdeveloped People and Underdeveloped Markets:
The number of people below poverty line has not decreased in any appreciable manner. Thus underdeveloped people and consequently underdeveloped market by and large characterize the rural markets. Vast majorities of the rural people are tradition bound, fatalistic and believe in old customs, traditions, habits, taboos and practices.
Lack of Proper Physical Communication Facilities:
Nearly fifty percent of the villages in the country do not have all weather roads. Physical communication of these villages is highly expensive. Even today most villages in the eastern parts of the country are inaccessible during the monsoon.
Media for Rural Communication:
Among the mass media at some point of time in the late 50's and 60's radio was considered to be a potential medium for communication to the rural people. Another mass media is television and cinemas. Statistics indicate that the rural areas account for hardly 2000 to 3500 mobile theatres, which is far less when compared to the number of villages.
Many Languages and Dialects:
The number of languages and dialects vary widely from state to state, region to region and probably from district to district. The messages have to be delivered in the local languages and dialects. Even though the number of recognized languages are only 16, the dialects are estimated to be around 850.
Dispersed Market:
Rural areas are scattered and it is next to impossible to ensure the availability of a brand all over the country. Seven Indian states account for 76% of the country's rural retail outlets, the total number of which is placed at around 3.7 million. Advertising in such a highly heterogeneous market, which is widely spread, is very expensive.
Low Per Capita Income:
Even though about 33-35% of gross domestic product is generated in the rural areas it is shared by 74% of the population. Hence the per capita incomes are low compared to the urban areas.
Low Levels of Literacy:
The literacy rate is low in rural areas as compared to urban areas. This again leads to problem of communication for promotion purposes. Print medium becomes ineffective and to an extent irrelevant in rural areas since its reach is poor and so is the level of literacy.
Prevalence of spurious brands and seasonal demand:
For any branded product there are a multitude of 'local variants', which are cheaper, and, therefore, more desirable to villagers.
Different way of thinking:
There is a vast difference in the lifestyles of the people. The kind of choices of brands that an urban customer enjoys is different from the choices available to the rural customer. The rural customer usually has 2 or 3 brands to choose from whereas the urban one has multiple choices. The difference is also in the way of thinking. The rural customer has a fairly simple thinking as compared to the urban counterpart.
The 4A Approach
The rural market may be alluring but it is not without its problems: Low per capita disposable incomes that is half the urban disposable income; large number of daily wage earners, acute dependence on the vagaries of the monsoon; seasonal consumption linked to harvests and festivals and special occasions; poor roads; power problems; and inaccessibility to conventional advertising media.
However, the rural consumer is not unlike his urban counterpart in many ways.
The more daring MNCs are meeting the consequent challenges of availability, affordability, acceptability and awareness (the so-called 4 As).
Availability
The first challenge is to ensure availability of the product or service. India's 627,000 villages are spread over 3.2 million sq km; 700 million Indians may live in rural areas, finding them is not easy. However, given the poor state of roads, it is an even greater challenge to regularly reach products to the far-flung villages. Any serious marketer must strive to reach at least 13,113 villages with a population of more than 5,000. Marketers must trade off the distribution cost with incremental market penetration. Over the years, India's largest MNC, Hindustan Lever, a subsidiary of Unilever, has built a strong distribution system, which helps its brands reach the interiors of the rural market. To service remote village, stockists use auto-rickshaws, bullock-carts and even boats in the backwaters of Kerela. Coca-Cola, which considers rural India as a future growth driver, has evolved a hub and spoke distribution model to reach the villages. To ensure full loads, the company depot supplies, twice a week, large distributors which who act as hubs. These distributors appoint and supply, once a week, smaller distributors in adjoining areas. LG Electronics defines all cities and towns other than the seven metros cities as rural and semi-urban market. To tap these unexplored country markets, LG has set up 45 area offices and 59 rural/remote area offices.
Study on buying behaviour of rural consumer indicates that the rural retailers influences 35% of purchase occasions. Therefore sheer product availability can affect decision of brand choice, volumes and market share. Some of the FMCG giants like HLL took out project streamline to significantly enhance the control on the rural supply chain through a network of rural sub-stockists, who are based in the villages only. Apart from this to acquire further edge in distribution HLL started Project Shakti in partnership with Self Help groups of rural women.
Affordability
The second challenge is to ensure affordability of the product or service. With low disposable incomes, products need to be affordable to the rural consumer, most of whom are on daily wages. Some companies have addressed the affordability problem by introducing small unit packs. Godrej recently introduced three brands of Cinthol, Fair Glow and Godrej in 50-gm packs, priced at Rs 4-5 meant specifically for Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh - the so-called `Bimaru' States.
With large parts of rural India inaccessible to conventional advertising media - only 41 per cent rural households have access to TV - building awareness is another challenge. Fortunately, however, the rural consumer has the same likes as the urban consumer - movies and music - and for both the urban and rural consumer, the family is the key unit of identity. However, the rural consumer expressions differ from his urban counterpart. Outing for the former is confined to local fairs and festivals and TV viewing is confined to the state-owned Doordarshan. Consumption of branded products is treated as a special treat or indulgence.
Hindustan Lever relies heavily on its own company-organised media. These are promotional events organised by stockists. Godrej Consumer Products, which is trying to push its soap brands into the interior areas, uses radio to reach the local people in their language.
Coca-Cola uses a combination of TV, cinema and radio to reach 53.6 per cent of rural households. It doubled its spend on advertising on Doordarshan, which alone reached 41 per cent of rural households. It has also used banners, posters and tapped all the local forms of entertainment. Since price is a key issue in the rural areas, Coca-Cola advertising stressed its `magical' price point of Rs 5 per bottle in all media.LG Electronics uses vans and road shows to reach rural customers. The company uses local language advertising. Philips India uses wall writing and radio advertising to drive its growth in rural areas.
The key dilemma for MNCs eager to tap the large and fast-growing rural market is whether they can do so without hurting the company's profit margins. In case of nestle, company's product portfolio is essentially designed for urban consumers which cautions companies from plunging headlong into the rural market as capturing rural consumers can be expensive.
Role of Rural Retailing
Retailing is the final phase of the distribution channel and it is clear by now that it is availability and distribution that drives growth in rural Indian markets. Hence retailing will be significant and will undergo greater organisation and maturity as is being witnessed in the urban markets, even in the rural markets. Innovative retail models which take into account the nuances of rural markets is the way forward.
Format
Chaupal Sagar cannot be shoehorned into any of the existing retailing categories. At 7,000 square feet, it is too small to be a mall.
It has opted for self-service, stocking its merchandise on shelves lining the neat aisles, it stocks a breadth of products no supermarket can. It offers almost everything - from toothpastes to televisions, hair oils to motorcycles, mixer-grinders to water pumps, shirts to fertilisers... It defies pigeonholing. It is just a very sharply thought-out rural store.
Most of the brands it sells are national such as Marico, LG, Philips, torches from Eveready, shirts from ITC's apparel business, bikes from TVS, and tractors from Eicher.
Facilities
Spread over 5 acres of land at Sehore in Madhya Pradesh: -
Rural shopping malls will be open from 6 am to 9 pm.
Features and facilities at these ITC malls can overshadow those in the metros. The ITC store sells everything that a rural consumer may ask for - sarees to kurta-pyjamas to shirts (in the range of Rs 99-500), footwear, groceries, electronic durable from TVs to microwaves, cosmetics and other accessories, farm consumption products like seeds, fertilisers, pumps, generators and even tractors, motorcycles and scooters.
Banking and automated teller machines will be standard at the malls.
Insurance products for farmers.
Entertainment facilities, restaurants, public facilities and parking space will also be available.
There is even a fuel pump in tie-up with BPCL and a cafeteria.
Parking lot for 160 tractors.
There will be a primary healthcare facility to be serviced by a private healthcare service provider.
Information centres: The company will create the facility for providing online information on commodity rates and weather.
Shopping malls will have a training facility on modern farm techniques.
Farmers can come and log on to the Internet and check the pricing and sell their commodities.
There will also be godowns for storing the wheat and soybean and also for stocking products retailed at the mall.
Business Model
The business model of Chaupal Sagar is linked closely with the E-chaupal initiative of ITC.
Role of ITC is to create infrastructure such as space, computers, and building.
ITC will charge a fee for the services and items sold at the mall.
E-CHAUPAL: E-Chaupal is the backbone of these rural malls. While the first layer (E-Chaupal) provides the farmers necessary information about weather and prices, this hypermarket initiative will provide them another platform to sell their produce and purchase necessary farm and household goods under the same roof.
The e-Choupal model required that ITC to make significant investments to create and maintain its own IT network in rural India and to identify and train a local farmer to manage each e-Choupal.
E-Choupal combines a Web portal in the local language and PCs with Internet access placed in the villages to create a two-way channel between ITC and the villagers. The project started with a pilot in June 2000 in Madhya Pradesh with Soybean farmers. Currently, it covers six states, and multiple commodities like prawns, cotton and coffee with 4000 Choupals.
Plans are to reach 15 states by 2010, covering 100,000 villages with 20,000 Choupals.
Each e-Choupal (equipped with a PC with Internet connectivity, printer and UPS) typically housed in the farmer's house, is linked to the Internet via phone lines or, increasingly, by a VSAT connection, and serves an average of 600 farmers in 10 surrounding villages within about a five kilometer radius. Using the system costs farmers nothing, but the host farmer, called a sanchalak, incurs some operating costs (The IT part of each e-Choupal costs about Rs 1.3 lakh, each e-Choupal is estimated to pay back for itself in 4.5 years) and is obligated by a public oath to serve the entire community; the sanchalak benefits from increased prestige and a commission paid him for all e-Choupal transactions. The farmers can use the computer to access daily closing prices on local mandis, as well as to track global price trends or find information about new farming techniques-either directly or, because many farmers are illiterate, via the sanchalak. They also use the e-Choupal to order seed, fertilizer, and other products such as consumer goods from ITC or its partners, at prices lower than those available from village traders; the sanchalak typically aggregates the village demand for these products and transmits the order to an ITC representative. At harvest time, ITC offers to buy the crop directly from any farmer at the previous day's closing price; the farmer then transports his crop to an ITC processing center, where the crop is weighed electronically and assessed for quality. The farmer is then paid for the crop and a transport fee. "Bonus points," which are exchangeable for products that ITC sells, are given for crops with quality above the norm. In this way, the e-Choupal system bypasses the government-mandated trading mandis.
Farmers benefit from more accurate weighing, faster processing time, and prompt payment, and from access to a wide range of information, including accurate market price knowledge, and market trends, which help them decide when, where, and at what price to sell. Farmers selling directly to ITC through an e-Choupal typically receive a higher price for their crops than they would receive through the mandi system, on average about 2.5% higher (about US$6 per ton). The total benefit to farmers includes lower prices for inputs and other goods, higher yields, and a sense of empowerment. At the same time, ITC benefits from net procurement costs that are about 2.5% lower (it saves the commission fee and part of the transport costs it would otherwise pay to traders who serve as its buying agents at the mandi) and it has more direct control over the quality of what it buys.
By building a network of warehouses near the production centres and by providing inputs to the farmers and test output at the individual farm level, ITC is able to preserve the source and quality information of produce purchased. By helping the farmer identify and control his inputs and farming practices and by paying better for better quality, ITC is able to improve the quality of produce that it purchases. In the commodities market, these two combine to help ITC create the differentiator that it set out to establish in the beginning.
ITC gains additional benefits from using this network as a distribution channel for its products (and those of its partners) and a source of innovation for new products. It is also being used to provide services like rural market research to those interested.
Strategy for Success
Use of ITC warehouses
This will help in cost control as well as better utilisation of space in these warehouses. It will also provide convenience and familiarity with the target customer.
Targeted at Farmers selling to ITC warehouse through E-chaupal
With its network of e-chaupals, ITC communicates its latest commodity prices to the farmers via the Internet or VSAT lines. If they find these attractive, they sell their produce to ITC. The sanchalak (the person who operates an e-chaupal; most of them are farmers) of villages near these malls reckons that half the farmers in his village deal only with ITC. Now, by setting up the mall next to the warehouse, ITC is trying to monetise the footfalls from farmers; that is every time sanchalaks- and farmers visit ITC's soybean factories in MP to sell their produce, they also have the opportunity to spend their freshly earned cash.
ITC realised that the farmers had just got money, that they would spend it anyway, and that they had an empty vehicle with which they could lug the stuff back.
ITC intends to capture the rural folks' out-of-village shopping
The warehouse is one bulwark of its strategy, obviously. But the farmers will come here only after every harvest. To ensure that they keep coming to Chaupal Sagar even at other times, the company is offering a slew of other goodies. Another building is coming up next to the main warehouse. When completed, it will house a bank, a cafeteria, apart from an insurance office and a learning centre. ITC has tied up with agri-institutes to offer farmer training programmes. Then, plots of land have been earmarked to display large agricultural machinery like threshers. Other parcels of land have been earmarked for pesticide and fertiliser companies for demonstrating their products. A petrol pump is coming up as well.
To attract footfalls during the lean season, ITC plans to organise various activities and events including melas,training programs, demonstrations.
The hubs are strategically located to attract suburban crowds as well.
Retail channel for its own brands as well as for other brands
Working through the sanchalaks, ITC first pushed its own products, like salt, into the hinterland, and then invited others like Parachute and Philips to ride on this distribution chain. Today, it plans to similarly create revenue streams around its warehouses.
Financing Scheme
ITC is investing initially Rs 3 crore (Rs 30 million) in each such shopping mall. However it is working out a strategy to make it cost-effective for them.
To keep its own investment to the minimum, ITC is encouraging the samyojak - a local broker or middleman co-opted by ITC - to pick up equity and manage these shops as part owners.
Assisted by four ITC salesmen, the samyojaks will assess demand, ensure just-in-time delivery, manage customer service and keep accounts.
Uniqueness Of the Model: lies in the fact that it works equally well for ITC as the buyer of farm produce and ITC as the seller of desirables.
Charge fees from the brands being showcased at the mall as well as for the services being provided at the Mall.
Results & Expectations
During the peak season, a hub sees traffic of about 200 tractors per day on an average, as farmers come to sell their crops at the hubs.
Initial response: On the first day the store notched up a business of about Rs 70,000-80,000. Footfall of about 700-800 people on weekdays and soaring to 1,000 on weekends with conversion levels of 35%.
Future Plans
ITC chairman Yogi Deveshwar has promised his shareholders that the company would open 1,000 rural malls in India. This is the first one to have come up.
Encouraged by its image as a fair and reliable buyer of farm produce, ITC decided to invest in 5-acre malls, costing between Rs 3-5 crore each, across 15 states. The first five - four in Madhya Pradesh and one in UP - will be inaugurated by March 2004.
The first shopping mall is being set up near Sehore, and the second one will come up in June near Itarsi in Oshangabad district.
ITC is planning to set up 40 rural shopping centres in those. states where it has a presence through its e-chaupals and IT hubs spread across rural Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Haryali Bazaars Bring Organised Retailing to Farmers
Having successfully pioneered a new concept of Haryali Kissan Bazaars in 2002 in Hardoi, agri-inputs focused DCM Sriram Consolidated Ltd. (DSCL) opened eight more (Ladwa in Haryana, Ferozepur in Punjab, Kota in Rajasthan and four locations in UP).
The store complex is spread over 2-3 acres and caters to all the farmers requirements (both DCM Sriram products & other sources): farm inputs ((fertilizers, seeds, pesticides, animal feed), farm implements, spare parts, irrigation equipment, spraying equipment. Further, the uniformed salesman, an agricultural graduate, gives free agricultural related advice in personal interactions or through mobile phones (averaging 20 calls a day). Twenty such stores, each catering to 100 villages, are planned by 2005.
Innovative Rural Retail Models
Indian FMCG firms with rural experience have typically used three rural retail methods--direct distribution structures, van operations and super-stockist structures. Each of these methods need to be evaluated taking into consideration the current network, cost impact of the proposed structure and quality control issue associated with each of these structures.
Direct Retail/Distribution Structures
Project Shakti
Project Shakti - Hindustan Lever Ltd's (HLL) rural self-help group initiative to push the penetration of its products to reach areas of low access and low market potential.
Objective
HLL's conventional hub-and-spoke distribution model, which it uses to great effect in both urban and semi-urban markets, wouldn't be cost-effective in penetrating the smaller villages.
The effort is to create a WIN-WIN SITUTAION.
Through a combination of micro-credit and training in enterprise management, women from self-help groups have turned direct-to-home distributors of a range of HLL products and helping the company plumb hitherto unexplored rural hinterlands.
Concept
The Project is a retail/distribution model that HLL established in late 2000 to sell its products through women self-help groups who operate like a direct-to-home team of sales women in inaccessible areas where HLL's conventional sales system does not reach.
Strategy for Success
1. Social Angle
Create "income-generating capabilities for underprivileged rural women by providing a sustainable micro-enterprise opportunity".
To improve rural living standards through "health and hygiene awareness".
2. Commercial Angle
For HLL, it is "enlightened self-interest".
Creating opportunities to increase rural family incomes puts more money in their hands to purchase the range of daily consumption products - from soaps to toothpastes - that HLL makes.
It also enables HLL access hitherto unexplored rural hinterlands.
How Does It Work?
To get started the Shakti woman borrows from her SHG and the company itself chooses only one person. With training and handholding by the company for the first three months, she begins her door-to-door journey selling her wares.
A Shakti entrepreneur receives stocks at her doorstep from the HLL rural distributor and sells direct to consumers as well as to other retailers in the village.
Each Shakti entrepreneur services 6-10 villages in the population strata of 1,000 - 2,000 people.
Typically,a Shakti entrepreneur sets off with 4-5 chief brands from the HLL portfolio - Lifebuoy, Wheel, Pepsodent, Annapurna salt and Clinic Plus. Other brands which find favour with a rural audience are: Lux, Ponds, Nihar and 3 Roses tea.
The women avail of micro-credit through banks. Some of the established Shakti dealers are now selling Rs. 10,000 - Rs. 15,000 worth of products a month and making a gross profit of Rs. 700 - Rs. 1,000 a month. Each Shakti dealer covers 6-10 villages, which have a population of less 2,000. The company is creating demand for its products by having its Shakti dealers educating consumers on aspects like health and hygiene.
HLL-SHG Business Model
Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) India's largest consumer goods company has a large distribution network comprising 5,000 re-distribution stockists and 40 C&FAs (Clearing and Forwarding Agent). Yet this network covers only 75,000 villages directly out of the total 6,00,000 villages in India. A tie up with SHGs can take HLL products to many more villages directly.
Trading opportunities with stable companies with established rural brands (Lifebuoy, Lux, Wheel, Clinic and 3 Roses tea etc) could be a boon to women members of SHGs.
How Does It Work?
A pilot project (christened Project Shakti) was launched in Nalgonda in December 2000 in a small cluster of 50 villages with 50 SHGs and 3 MACTS (Mutually Aided Co-operative Thrift Society, a federation of around 20 SHGs).
There are 3 partners and their roles are: -
MACTS/SHGs: sell/retail HLL products
HLL: supplies products, provides marketing and promotion support
MART: facilitates the process, provides business training inputs
Capacity Building of MACTS and SHGs
Achievement Motivation Training programmes have been conducted to create a desire among women for starting their own business.
Formal training of group leaders and other members have been conducted to help them become successful entrepreneurs.
Level 1: Basic orientation to HLL business and brands.
Level 2: Enterprise management and marketing.
Animators have been appointed (stipend paid by HLL) to promote sale.
'Shakti Day', an artificially created market place in the village with specially devised communication kits is conducted regularly where special discounts and schemes are offered to increase sale.
Results & Expectations
Accounts for 10-15 per cent of HLL's rural sales. The statistic assumes significance as the rural market constitutes over 40 per cent of HLL's total sales of about Rs 10,000 crore.
HLL has seen 15 per cent incremental sales from rural Andhra, which contributes 50 per cent to overall sales from Andhra of HLL products.
Lot of consumer understanding and insights comes from an exercise like Project Shakti, which in turn can lead to product innovation.
I-Shakti', an IT-based rural information service that will provide solutions to key rural needs in the areas of agriculture, education, vocational training, health and hygiene.
Future Plans
Given the success of the model piloted in Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh in 2001, the company has plans to expand Project Shakti in 400 districts by 2006. By the end of 2004, it plans to cover 100 districts. At the moment, it reaches about 10,000 villages in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka and works through 800 self-help groups (SHGs).
The company intends to extend the model across Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and UP and TamilNadu markets. The Shakti vision, is to have by 2007 at least 10,000 Shakti dealers, covering a lakh villages and touching at least 100 million consumers.
Company is in dialogue with non-competing companies like Philips (bulbs) for a partnership to distribute their products through the network that HLL has established. The company is in talks with insurance companies such as ICICI Prudential and Max New York Life to sell policies through its `Shakti dealers'. Sources said that a battery maker is also in talks with the company as it is not a product in the HLL portfolio.
Super-Stockist Channel
Project Streamline
The company had earlier also launched Operation Streamline to further increase its rural reach with the help of rural sub-stockists. It had appointed 6,000 such stockists, the distribution network directly covering about 50,000 villages reaching about 250 million consumers. HLL conceptualised Project Streamline to enhance its control on the rural supply chain through a network of rural sub-stockists based in these villages. This gave the company the required competitive edge, and extended its direct reach to 37 per cent of the country's rural population.
Key Points
To increase the reach in rural areas.
Rural Distributor will have around 20 stockists attached to him who performs the role of driving distribution in villages using unconventional means of transport such as tractor, bullock, etc.
This gave the company the required competitive edge, and extended its direct reach to 37 per cent of the country's rural population.
This strategy has supposed to increase the market share of HLL in rural areas by about 3%.
Control on the rural supply chain through a network of rural sub-stockists, who are based in the villages only.
Others
Marico launched a major initiative into rural markets by appointing 2,400 sub-stockists in the last two years. Recently, Dabur also finished a pilot project for its super-stockists in Patna and has now rolled it out in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Reckitt has also adopted the super-stockist system in Tamil Nadu and plans to set up such a system all over the country in the next year, with the target of covering one million outlets in the next three years.
Van Operations
Project Bharat
In 1998 HLL's personal products unit initiated Project Bharat, the first and largest rural home-to-home operation to have ever been prepared by any company. The project covered 13 million rural households by the end of 1999.
During the course of operation, HLL had vans visiting villages across the country distributing sample packs comprising a low-unit-price pack each of shampoo, talcum powder, toothpaste and skin cream priced at Rs 15. This was to create awareness of the company's product categories and of the affordability of the products.
The personal products unit subsequently rolled out a second phase of the sampling initiative to target villages with a population of over 2,000.
Project Bharat, a massive rural sampling initiative in two phases. They have carried out one of the largest sampling exercises for this purpose to overcome barriers like lack of brand awareness, ignorance of product benefits and complete absence of any first-hand experience of usage.
Recommendations
The business model for rural retail can be successful only when integration between the profit and social motive is apparent. The social angle needs to be pronounced for it to be acceptable.
Empowerment in terms of economic power, purchasing power, knowledge and information dissemination is crucial for rural retail ventures to succeed. The model should empower the rural consumer and at the same time take advantage of this empowerment through creation of demand for its own products and that of its partners.
The level of penetration except for certain products, has been negligible so far. However, so far as the rural share in consumer expendables like cooking oil, tea, electric bulbs, hair oil, shampoo, toilet soap, toothpaste, washing cakes and washing powder is concerned, their share on an average, is much higher than consumer durables. Though the rural-urban differentials are not so pronounced in the case of durables, the rural market penetration is low with respect to urban areas. However, in case of health beverages and cosmetics like shampoos, nail polish and lipsticks, large gaps exist. Hence these products provide substantial opportunity to enter the rural markets.
Definitely there is lot of money in rural India. But there are hindrances at the same time. The greatest hindrance is that the rural market is still evolving and there is no set format to understand consumer behaviour. Lot of study is still to be conducted in order to understand the rural consumer. Only FMCGs with deeper pockets, unwavering rural commitment and staying power will be able to stay longer on this rural race and hence should venture into this territory.
An Overview
The Indian rural market with its vast size and demand base offers great opportunities to marketers. Two-thirds of countries consumers live in rural areas and almost half of the national income is generated here. It is only natural that rural markets form an important part of the total market of India. Our nation is classified in around 450 districts, and approximately 630000 villages, which can be sorted in different parameters such as literacy levels, accessibility, income levels, penetration, distances from nearest towns, etc.
Few Facts
70 % of India's population lives in 627000 villages in rural areas. According to the NCAER study, there are almost twice as many 'lower middle income' households in rural areas as in the urban areas.
At the highest income level there are 2.3 million urban households as against 1.6 million households in rural areas.
Middle and high-income households in rural India is expected to grow from 80 million to 111 million by 2007.
In urban India, the same is expected to grow from 46 million to 59 million. Thus, the absolute size of rural India is expected to be double that of urban India.
Opportunity
The above figures are a clear indication that the rural markets offer the great potential to help the India Inc which has reached the plateau of their business curve in urban India to bank upon the volume-driven growth.
The Indian rural market with its vast size and demand base offers a huge opportunity that MNCs cannot afford to ignore. With 128 million households, the rural population is nearly three times the urban.
As a result of the growing affluence, fuelled by good monsoons and the increase in agricultural output to 200 million tonnes from 176 million tonnes in 1991, rural India has a large consuming class with 41 per cent of India's middle-class and 58 per cent of the total disposable income.
The importance of the rural market for some FMCG and durable marketers is underlined by the fact that the rural market accounts for close to 70 per cent of toilet-soap users and 38 per cent of all two-wheeler purchased.
The rural market accounts for half the total market for TV sets, fans, pressure cookers, bicycles, washing soap, blades, tea, salt and toothpowder, What is more, the rural market for FMCG products is growing much faster than the urban counterpart.
Features of Indian Rural Markets
Large and Scattered market: The rural market of India is large and scattered in the sense that it consists of over 63 crore consumers from 5,70,000 villages spread throughout the country.
Major income from agriculture: Nearly 60 % of the rural income is from agriculture. Hence rural prosperity is tied with agricultural prosperity.
Low standard of living: The consumer in the village area do have a low standard of living because of low literacy, low per capita income, social backwardness, low savings, etc.
Traditional Outlook: The rural consumer values old customs and tradition. They do not prefer changes.
Diverse socio-economic backwardness: Rural consumers have diverse socio-economic backwardness. This is different in different parts of the country.
Infrastructure Facilities: The Infrastructure Facilities like roads, warehouses, communication system, financial facilities are inadequate in rural areas. Hence physical distribution becomes costly due to inadequate Infrastructure facilities.
The rural bazaar is booming beyond everyone's expectation. This has been primarily attributed to a spurt in the purchasing capacity of farmers now enjoying an increasing marketable surplus of farm produce. In addition, an estimated induction of Rs 140 billion in the rural sector through the government's rural development schemes in the Seventh Plan and about Rs 300 billion in the Eighth Plan is also believed to have significantly contributed to the rapid growth in demand. The high incomes combined with low cost of living in the villages have meant more money to spend. And with the market providing them options, tastes are also changing.
Problems in the Booming Rural Marketing
Although the rural market does offer a vast untapped potential, it should also be recognized that it is not that easy to operate in rural market because of several problems. Rural marketing is thus a time consuming affair and requires considerable investments in terms of evolving appropriate strategies with a view to tackle the problems.
The major problems faced are:
Underdeveloped People and Underdeveloped Markets:
The number of people below poverty line has not decreased in any appreciable manner. Thus underdeveloped people and consequently underdeveloped market by and large characterize the rural markets. Vast majorities of the rural people are tradition bound, fatalistic and believe in old customs, traditions, habits, taboos and practices.
Lack of Proper Physical Communication Facilities:
Nearly fifty percent of the villages in the country do not have all weather roads. Physical communication of these villages is highly expensive. Even today most villages in the eastern parts of the country are inaccessible during the monsoon.
Media for Rural Communication:
Among the mass media at some point of time in the late 50's and 60's radio was considered to be a potential medium for communication to the rural people. Another mass media is television and cinemas. Statistics indicate that the rural areas account for hardly 2000 to 3500 mobile theatres, which is far less when compared to the number of villages.
Many Languages and Dialects:
The number of languages and dialects vary widely from state to state, region to region and probably from district to district. The messages have to be delivered in the local languages and dialects. Even though the number of recognized languages are only 16, the dialects are estimated to be around 850.
Dispersed Market:
Rural areas are scattered and it is next to impossible to ensure the availability of a brand all over the country. Seven Indian states account for 76% of the country's rural retail outlets, the total number of which is placed at around 3.7 million. Advertising in such a highly heterogeneous market, which is widely spread, is very expensive.
Low Per Capita Income:
Even though about 33-35% of gross domestic product is generated in the rural areas it is shared by 74% of the population. Hence the per capita incomes are low compared to the urban areas.
Low Levels of Literacy:
The literacy rate is low in rural areas as compared to urban areas. This again leads to problem of communication for promotion purposes. Print medium becomes ineffective and to an extent irrelevant in rural areas since its reach is poor and so is the level of literacy.
Prevalence of spurious brands and seasonal demand:
For any branded product there are a multitude of 'local variants', which are cheaper, and, therefore, more desirable to villagers.
Different way of thinking:
There is a vast difference in the lifestyles of the people. The kind of choices of brands that an urban customer enjoys is different from the choices available to the rural customer. The rural customer usually has 2 or 3 brands to choose from whereas the urban one has multiple choices. The difference is also in the way of thinking. The rural customer has a fairly simple thinking as compared to the urban counterpart.
The 4A Approach
The rural market may be alluring but it is not without its problems: Low per capita disposable incomes that is half the urban disposable income; large number of daily wage earners, acute dependence on the vagaries of the monsoon; seasonal consumption linked to harvests and festivals and special occasions; poor roads; power problems; and inaccessibility to conventional advertising media.
However, the rural consumer is not unlike his urban counterpart in many ways.
The more daring MNCs are meeting the consequent challenges of availability, affordability, acceptability and awareness (the so-called 4 As).
Availability
The first challenge is to ensure availability of the product or service. India's 627,000 villages are spread over 3.2 million sq km; 700 million Indians may live in rural areas, finding them is not easy. However, given the poor state of roads, it is an even greater challenge to regularly reach products to the far-flung villages. Any serious marketer must strive to reach at least 13,113 villages with a population of more than 5,000. Marketers must trade off the distribution cost with incremental market penetration. Over the years, India's largest MNC, Hindustan Lever, a subsidiary of Unilever, has built a strong distribution system, which helps its brands reach the interiors of the rural market. To service remote village, stockists use auto-rickshaws, bullock-carts and even boats in the backwaters of Kerela. Coca-Cola, which considers rural India as a future growth driver, has evolved a hub and spoke distribution model to reach the villages. To ensure full loads, the company depot supplies, twice a week, large distributors which who act as hubs. These distributors appoint and supply, once a week, smaller distributors in adjoining areas. LG Electronics defines all cities and towns other than the seven metros cities as rural and semi-urban market. To tap these unexplored country markets, LG has set up 45 area offices and 59 rural/remote area offices.
Study on buying behaviour of rural consumer indicates that the rural retailers influences 35% of purchase occasions. Therefore sheer product availability can affect decision of brand choice, volumes and market share. Some of the FMCG giants like HLL took out project streamline to significantly enhance the control on the rural supply chain through a network of rural sub-stockists, who are based in the villages only. Apart from this to acquire further edge in distribution HLL started Project Shakti in partnership with Self Help groups of rural women.
Affordability
The second challenge is to ensure affordability of the product or service. With low disposable incomes, products need to be affordable to the rural consumer, most of whom are on daily wages. Some companies have addressed the affordability problem by introducing small unit packs. Godrej recently introduced three brands of Cinthol, Fair Glow and Godrej in 50-gm packs, priced at Rs 4-5 meant specifically for Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh - the so-called `Bimaru' States.
With large parts of rural India inaccessible to conventional advertising media - only 41 per cent rural households have access to TV - building awareness is another challenge. Fortunately, however, the rural consumer has the same likes as the urban consumer - movies and music - and for both the urban and rural consumer, the family is the key unit of identity. However, the rural consumer expressions differ from his urban counterpart. Outing for the former is confined to local fairs and festivals and TV viewing is confined to the state-owned Doordarshan. Consumption of branded products is treated as a special treat or indulgence.
Hindustan Lever relies heavily on its own company-organised media. These are promotional events organised by stockists. Godrej Consumer Products, which is trying to push its soap brands into the interior areas, uses radio to reach the local people in their language.
Coca-Cola uses a combination of TV, cinema and radio to reach 53.6 per cent of rural households. It doubled its spend on advertising on Doordarshan, which alone reached 41 per cent of rural households. It has also used banners, posters and tapped all the local forms of entertainment. Since price is a key issue in the rural areas, Coca-Cola advertising stressed its `magical' price point of Rs 5 per bottle in all media.LG Electronics uses vans and road shows to reach rural customers. The company uses local language advertising. Philips India uses wall writing and radio advertising to drive its growth in rural areas.
The key dilemma for MNCs eager to tap the large and fast-growing rural market is whether they can do so without hurting the company's profit margins. In case of nestle, company's product portfolio is essentially designed for urban consumers which cautions companies from plunging headlong into the rural market as capturing rural consumers can be expensive.
Role of Rural Retailing
Retailing is the final phase of the distribution channel and it is clear by now that it is availability and distribution that drives growth in rural Indian markets. Hence retailing will be significant and will undergo greater organisation and maturity as is being witnessed in the urban markets, even in the rural markets. Innovative retail models which take into account the nuances of rural markets is the way forward.
Format
Chaupal Sagar cannot be shoehorned into any of the existing retailing categories. At 7,000 square feet, it is too small to be a mall.
It has opted for self-service, stocking its merchandise on shelves lining the neat aisles, it stocks a breadth of products no supermarket can. It offers almost everything - from toothpastes to televisions, hair oils to motorcycles, mixer-grinders to water pumps, shirts to fertilisers... It defies pigeonholing. It is just a very sharply thought-out rural store.
Most of the brands it sells are national such as Marico, LG, Philips, torches from Eveready, shirts from ITC's apparel business, bikes from TVS, and tractors from Eicher.
Facilities
Spread over 5 acres of land at Sehore in Madhya Pradesh: -
Rural shopping malls will be open from 6 am to 9 pm.
Features and facilities at these ITC malls can overshadow those in the metros. The ITC store sells everything that a rural consumer may ask for - sarees to kurta-pyjamas to shirts (in the range of Rs 99-500), footwear, groceries, electronic durable from TVs to microwaves, cosmetics and other accessories, farm consumption products like seeds, fertilisers, pumps, generators and even tractors, motorcycles and scooters.
Banking and automated teller machines will be standard at the malls.
Insurance products for farmers.
Entertainment facilities, restaurants, public facilities and parking space will also be available.
There is even a fuel pump in tie-up with BPCL and a cafeteria.
Parking lot for 160 tractors.
There will be a primary healthcare facility to be serviced by a private healthcare service provider.
Information centres: The company will create the facility for providing online information on commodity rates and weather.
Shopping malls will have a training facility on modern farm techniques.
Farmers can come and log on to the Internet and check the pricing and sell their commodities.
There will also be godowns for storing the wheat and soybean and also for stocking products retailed at the mall.
Business Model
The business model of Chaupal Sagar is linked closely with the E-chaupal initiative of ITC.
Role of ITC is to create infrastructure such as space, computers, and building.
ITC will charge a fee for the services and items sold at the mall.
E-CHAUPAL: E-Chaupal is the backbone of these rural malls. While the first layer (E-Chaupal) provides the farmers necessary information about weather and prices, this hypermarket initiative will provide them another platform to sell their produce and purchase necessary farm and household goods under the same roof.
The e-Choupal model required that ITC to make significant investments to create and maintain its own IT network in rural India and to identify and train a local farmer to manage each e-Choupal.
E-Choupal combines a Web portal in the local language and PCs with Internet access placed in the villages to create a two-way channel between ITC and the villagers. The project started with a pilot in June 2000 in Madhya Pradesh with Soybean farmers. Currently, it covers six states, and multiple commodities like prawns, cotton and coffee with 4000 Choupals.
Plans are to reach 15 states by 2010, covering 100,000 villages with 20,000 Choupals.
Each e-Choupal (equipped with a PC with Internet connectivity, printer and UPS) typically housed in the farmer's house, is linked to the Internet via phone lines or, increasingly, by a VSAT connection, and serves an average of 600 farmers in 10 surrounding villages within about a five kilometer radius. Using the system costs farmers nothing, but the host farmer, called a sanchalak, incurs some operating costs (The IT part of each e-Choupal costs about Rs 1.3 lakh, each e-Choupal is estimated to pay back for itself in 4.5 years) and is obligated by a public oath to serve the entire community; the sanchalak benefits from increased prestige and a commission paid him for all e-Choupal transactions. The farmers can use the computer to access daily closing prices on local mandis, as well as to track global price trends or find information about new farming techniques-either directly or, because many farmers are illiterate, via the sanchalak. They also use the e-Choupal to order seed, fertilizer, and other products such as consumer goods from ITC or its partners, at prices lower than those available from village traders; the sanchalak typically aggregates the village demand for these products and transmits the order to an ITC representative. At harvest time, ITC offers to buy the crop directly from any farmer at the previous day's closing price; the farmer then transports his crop to an ITC processing center, where the crop is weighed electronically and assessed for quality. The farmer is then paid for the crop and a transport fee. "Bonus points," which are exchangeable for products that ITC sells, are given for crops with quality above the norm. In this way, the e-Choupal system bypasses the government-mandated trading mandis.
Farmers benefit from more accurate weighing, faster processing time, and prompt payment, and from access to a wide range of information, including accurate market price knowledge, and market trends, which help them decide when, where, and at what price to sell. Farmers selling directly to ITC through an e-Choupal typically receive a higher price for their crops than they would receive through the mandi system, on average about 2.5% higher (about US$6 per ton). The total benefit to farmers includes lower prices for inputs and other goods, higher yields, and a sense of empowerment. At the same time, ITC benefits from net procurement costs that are about 2.5% lower (it saves the commission fee and part of the transport costs it would otherwise pay to traders who serve as its buying agents at the mandi) and it has more direct control over the quality of what it buys.
By building a network of warehouses near the production centres and by providing inputs to the farmers and test output at the individual farm level, ITC is able to preserve the source and quality information of produce purchased. By helping the farmer identify and control his inputs and farming practices and by paying better for better quality, ITC is able to improve the quality of produce that it purchases. In the commodities market, these two combine to help ITC create the differentiator that it set out to establish in the beginning.
ITC gains additional benefits from using this network as a distribution channel for its products (and those of its partners) and a source of innovation for new products. It is also being used to provide services like rural market research to those interested.
Strategy for Success
Use of ITC warehouses
This will help in cost control as well as better utilisation of space in these warehouses. It will also provide convenience and familiarity with the target customer.
Targeted at Farmers selling to ITC warehouse through E-chaupal
With its network of e-chaupals, ITC communicates its latest commodity prices to the farmers via the Internet or VSAT lines. If they find these attractive, they sell their produce to ITC. The sanchalak (the person who operates an e-chaupal; most of them are farmers) of villages near these malls reckons that half the farmers in his village deal only with ITC. Now, by setting up the mall next to the warehouse, ITC is trying to monetise the footfalls from farmers; that is every time sanchalaks- and farmers visit ITC's soybean factories in MP to sell their produce, they also have the opportunity to spend their freshly earned cash.
ITC realised that the farmers had just got money, that they would spend it anyway, and that they had an empty vehicle with which they could lug the stuff back.
ITC intends to capture the rural folks' out-of-village shopping
The warehouse is one bulwark of its strategy, obviously. But the farmers will come here only after every harvest. To ensure that they keep coming to Chaupal Sagar even at other times, the company is offering a slew of other goodies. Another building is coming up next to the main warehouse. When completed, it will house a bank, a cafeteria, apart from an insurance office and a learning centre. ITC has tied up with agri-institutes to offer farmer training programmes. Then, plots of land have been earmarked to display large agricultural machinery like threshers. Other parcels of land have been earmarked for pesticide and fertiliser companies for demonstrating their products. A petrol pump is coming up as well.
To attract footfalls during the lean season, ITC plans to organise various activities and events including melas,training programs, demonstrations.
The hubs are strategically located to attract suburban crowds as well.
Retail channel for its own brands as well as for other brands
Working through the sanchalaks, ITC first pushed its own products, like salt, into the hinterland, and then invited others like Parachute and Philips to ride on this distribution chain. Today, it plans to similarly create revenue streams around its warehouses.
Financing Scheme
ITC is investing initially Rs 3 crore (Rs 30 million) in each such shopping mall. However it is working out a strategy to make it cost-effective for them.
To keep its own investment to the minimum, ITC is encouraging the samyojak - a local broker or middleman co-opted by ITC - to pick up equity and manage these shops as part owners.
Assisted by four ITC salesmen, the samyojaks will assess demand, ensure just-in-time delivery, manage customer service and keep accounts.
Uniqueness Of the Model: lies in the fact that it works equally well for ITC as the buyer of farm produce and ITC as the seller of desirables.
Charge fees from the brands being showcased at the mall as well as for the services being provided at the Mall.
Results & Expectations
During the peak season, a hub sees traffic of about 200 tractors per day on an average, as farmers come to sell their crops at the hubs.
Initial response: On the first day the store notched up a business of about Rs 70,000-80,000. Footfall of about 700-800 people on weekdays and soaring to 1,000 on weekends with conversion levels of 35%.
Future Plans
ITC chairman Yogi Deveshwar has promised his shareholders that the company would open 1,000 rural malls in India. This is the first one to have come up.
Encouraged by its image as a fair and reliable buyer of farm produce, ITC decided to invest in 5-acre malls, costing between Rs 3-5 crore each, across 15 states. The first five - four in Madhya Pradesh and one in UP - will be inaugurated by March 2004.
The first shopping mall is being set up near Sehore, and the second one will come up in June near Itarsi in Oshangabad district.
ITC is planning to set up 40 rural shopping centres in those. states where it has a presence through its e-chaupals and IT hubs spread across rural Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Haryali Bazaars Bring Organised Retailing to Farmers
Having successfully pioneered a new concept of Haryali Kissan Bazaars in 2002 in Hardoi, agri-inputs focused DCM Sriram Consolidated Ltd. (DSCL) opened eight more (Ladwa in Haryana, Ferozepur in Punjab, Kota in Rajasthan and four locations in UP).
The store complex is spread over 2-3 acres and caters to all the farmers requirements (both DCM Sriram products & other sources): farm inputs ((fertilizers, seeds, pesticides, animal feed), farm implements, spare parts, irrigation equipment, spraying equipment. Further, the uniformed salesman, an agricultural graduate, gives free agricultural related advice in personal interactions or through mobile phones (averaging 20 calls a day). Twenty such stores, each catering to 100 villages, are planned by 2005.
Innovative Rural Retail Models
Indian FMCG firms with rural experience have typically used three rural retail methods--direct distribution structures, van operations and super-stockist structures. Each of these methods need to be evaluated taking into consideration the current network, cost impact of the proposed structure and quality control issue associated with each of these structures.
Direct Retail/Distribution Structures
Project Shakti
Project Shakti - Hindustan Lever Ltd's (HLL) rural self-help group initiative to push the penetration of its products to reach areas of low access and low market potential.
Objective
HLL's conventional hub-and-spoke distribution model, which it uses to great effect in both urban and semi-urban markets, wouldn't be cost-effective in penetrating the smaller villages.
The effort is to create a WIN-WIN SITUTAION.
Through a combination of micro-credit and training in enterprise management, women from self-help groups have turned direct-to-home distributors of a range of HLL products and helping the company plumb hitherto unexplored rural hinterlands.
Concept
The Project is a retail/distribution model that HLL established in late 2000 to sell its products through women self-help groups who operate like a direct-to-home team of sales women in inaccessible areas where HLL's conventional sales system does not reach.
Strategy for Success
1. Social Angle
Create "income-generating capabilities for underprivileged rural women by providing a sustainable micro-enterprise opportunity".
To improve rural living standards through "health and hygiene awareness".
2. Commercial Angle
For HLL, it is "enlightened self-interest".
Creating opportunities to increase rural family incomes puts more money in their hands to purchase the range of daily consumption products - from soaps to toothpastes - that HLL makes.
It also enables HLL access hitherto unexplored rural hinterlands.
How Does It Work?
To get started the Shakti woman borrows from her SHG and the company itself chooses only one person. With training and handholding by the company for the first three months, she begins her door-to-door journey selling her wares.
A Shakti entrepreneur receives stocks at her doorstep from the HLL rural distributor and sells direct to consumers as well as to other retailers in the village.
Each Shakti entrepreneur services 6-10 villages in the population strata of 1,000 - 2,000 people.
Typically,a Shakti entrepreneur sets off with 4-5 chief brands from the HLL portfolio - Lifebuoy, Wheel, Pepsodent, Annapurna salt and Clinic Plus. Other brands which find favour with a rural audience are: Lux, Ponds, Nihar and 3 Roses tea.
The women avail of micro-credit through banks. Some of the established Shakti dealers are now selling Rs. 10,000 - Rs. 15,000 worth of products a month and making a gross profit of Rs. 700 - Rs. 1,000 a month. Each Shakti dealer covers 6-10 villages, which have a population of less 2,000. The company is creating demand for its products by having its Shakti dealers educating consumers on aspects like health and hygiene.
HLL-SHG Business Model
Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) India's largest consumer goods company has a large distribution network comprising 5,000 re-distribution stockists and 40 C&FAs (Clearing and Forwarding Agent). Yet this network covers only 75,000 villages directly out of the total 6,00,000 villages in India. A tie up with SHGs can take HLL products to many more villages directly.
Trading opportunities with stable companies with established rural brands (Lifebuoy, Lux, Wheel, Clinic and 3 Roses tea etc) could be a boon to women members of SHGs.
How Does It Work?
A pilot project (christened Project Shakti) was launched in Nalgonda in December 2000 in a small cluster of 50 villages with 50 SHGs and 3 MACTS (Mutually Aided Co-operative Thrift Society, a federation of around 20 SHGs).
There are 3 partners and their roles are: -
MACTS/SHGs: sell/retail HLL products
HLL: supplies products, provides marketing and promotion support
MART: facilitates the process, provides business training inputs
Capacity Building of MACTS and SHGs
Achievement Motivation Training programmes have been conducted to create a desire among women for starting their own business.
Formal training of group leaders and other members have been conducted to help them become successful entrepreneurs.
Level 1: Basic orientation to HLL business and brands.
Level 2: Enterprise management and marketing.
Animators have been appointed (stipend paid by HLL) to promote sale.
'Shakti Day', an artificially created market place in the village with specially devised communication kits is conducted regularly where special discounts and schemes are offered to increase sale.
Results & Expectations
Accounts for 10-15 per cent of HLL's rural sales. The statistic assumes significance as the rural market constitutes over 40 per cent of HLL's total sales of about Rs 10,000 crore.
HLL has seen 15 per cent incremental sales from rural Andhra, which contributes 50 per cent to overall sales from Andhra of HLL products.
Lot of consumer understanding and insights comes from an exercise like Project Shakti, which in turn can lead to product innovation.
I-Shakti', an IT-based rural information service that will provide solutions to key rural needs in the areas of agriculture, education, vocational training, health and hygiene.
Future Plans
Given the success of the model piloted in Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh in 2001, the company has plans to expand Project Shakti in 400 districts by 2006. By the end of 2004, it plans to cover 100 districts. At the moment, it reaches about 10,000 villages in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka and works through 800 self-help groups (SHGs).
The company intends to extend the model across Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and UP and TamilNadu markets. The Shakti vision, is to have by 2007 at least 10,000 Shakti dealers, covering a lakh villages and touching at least 100 million consumers.
Company is in dialogue with non-competing companies like Philips (bulbs) for a partnership to distribute their products through the network that HLL has established. The company is in talks with insurance companies such as ICICI Prudential and Max New York Life to sell policies through its `Shakti dealers'. Sources said that a battery maker is also in talks with the company as it is not a product in the HLL portfolio.
Super-Stockist Channel
Project Streamline
The company had earlier also launched Operation Streamline to further increase its rural reach with the help of rural sub-stockists. It had appointed 6,000 such stockists, the distribution network directly covering about 50,000 villages reaching about 250 million consumers. HLL conceptualised Project Streamline to enhance its control on the rural supply chain through a network of rural sub-stockists based in these villages. This gave the company the required competitive edge, and extended its direct reach to 37 per cent of the country's rural population.
Key Points
To increase the reach in rural areas.
Rural Distributor will have around 20 stockists attached to him who performs the role of driving distribution in villages using unconventional means of transport such as tractor, bullock, etc.
This gave the company the required competitive edge, and extended its direct reach to 37 per cent of the country's rural population.
This strategy has supposed to increase the market share of HLL in rural areas by about 3%.
Control on the rural supply chain through a network of rural sub-stockists, who are based in the villages only.
Others
Marico launched a major initiative into rural markets by appointing 2,400 sub-stockists in the last two years. Recently, Dabur also finished a pilot project for its super-stockists in Patna and has now rolled it out in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Reckitt has also adopted the super-stockist system in Tamil Nadu and plans to set up such a system all over the country in the next year, with the target of covering one million outlets in the next three years.
Van Operations
Project Bharat
In 1998 HLL's personal products unit initiated Project Bharat, the first and largest rural home-to-home operation to have ever been prepared by any company. The project covered 13 million rural households by the end of 1999.
During the course of operation, HLL had vans visiting villages across the country distributing sample packs comprising a low-unit-price pack each of shampoo, talcum powder, toothpaste and skin cream priced at Rs 15. This was to create awareness of the company's product categories and of the affordability of the products.
The personal products unit subsequently rolled out a second phase of the sampling initiative to target villages with a population of over 2,000.
Project Bharat, a massive rural sampling initiative in two phases. They have carried out one of the largest sampling exercises for this purpose to overcome barriers like lack of brand awareness, ignorance of product benefits and complete absence of any first-hand experience of usage.
Recommendations
The business model for rural retail can be successful only when integration between the profit and social motive is apparent. The social angle needs to be pronounced for it to be acceptable.
Empowerment in terms of economic power, purchasing power, knowledge and information dissemination is crucial for rural retail ventures to succeed. The model should empower the rural consumer and at the same time take advantage of this empowerment through creation of demand for its own products and that of its partners.
The level of penetration except for certain products, has been negligible so far. However, so far as the rural share in consumer expendables like cooking oil, tea, electric bulbs, hair oil, shampoo, toilet soap, toothpaste, washing cakes and washing powder is concerned, their share on an average, is much higher than consumer durables. Though the rural-urban differentials are not so pronounced in the case of durables, the rural market penetration is low with respect to urban areas. However, in case of health beverages and cosmetics like shampoos, nail polish and lipsticks, large gaps exist. Hence these products provide substantial opportunity to enter the rural markets.
Definitely there is lot of money in rural India. But there are hindrances at the same time. The greatest hindrance is that the rural market is still evolving and there is no set format to understand consumer behaviour. Lot of study is still to be conducted in order to understand the rural consumer. Only FMCGs with deeper pockets, unwavering rural commitment and staying power will be able to stay longer on this rural race and hence should venture into this territory.
A law with flaws
By M H Ahssan
If the government fails to take on board some of the constructive suggestions made on the draft Women's Reservation Bill, it might not serve the purpose for which it has been conceived.
Here we go again. Even those who feel most passionately on this subject must now feel weary at hearing the same set of arguments repeated for and against the long-pending Women's Reservation Bill. While across party lines women politicians are convinced that the Bill must go through - the notable exceptions being Jaya Prada of the Samajwadi Party and Uma Bharati of the Bharatiya Janashakti Party - the same set of male politicians who opposed it in the past continue to do so.
Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United), who will long be remembered for his remark that the Bill would bring into Parliament more women with short hair, has once again staked his claim to notoriety by threatening to drink poison rather than allow the Bill to pass. Although he has retracted this comment, his penchant for the dramatic remains unaltered over the years. Of the other Yadavs, Mulayam sets out the same arguments as Sharad, about a separate quota for Backward Castes, while Lalu, after initially maintaining a diplomatic silence, has now aligned himself with Mulayam and Sharad. And interestingly, while the BJP is whole-heartedly supporting the Bill, its allies, JD (U) and Shiv Sena are opposing it.
Real possibility
The major difference this time from the episodes in the past when the Bill was introduced and then pushed to committee in the face of opposition is that the government has enough support to get two-thirds of the votes in Parliament. Thus, regardless of the threats and noises made by those who oppose it, the Bill could be passed.
It will not happen overnight or even within the 100 days promised by the government because it is still in committee and that committee has to be reconstituted. Given the way these processes work, even setting up a new Committee on Law and Justice will take some time. So the earliest we could see the Bill emerge again would be in the winter session of Parliament. A great deal can happen before that eventuality.
In its anxiety to push through the Bill, the government could brush aside genuine reservations about the current draft of the law and place it before the House unchanged. If there is a constructive debate, something that is not at all guaranteed, then once again the Bill could go into committee to incorporate recommendations. If there is no debate but disruption, as in the past, the government might withdraw it and send it to committee. Or if there is some debate but little opposition, the Bill could go through in its current form.
The last outcome would be the most unsatisfactory. For, if the government fails to take on board some of the constructive suggestions that have been made on the draft, the Bill that is placed in Parliament and somehow pushed through might not serve the purpose for which it has been conceived. The main reason for advocating a quota for women in Parliament is because women do not have a level playing field in the world of politics. Even though political parties have promised to field more women candidates, in fact their numbers have not increased. More women were elected to the 15th Lok Sabha because women's success rate is much higher than that of men. Given this, if political parties had ensured that at least a third of their candidates were women, it is possible that their number in Parliament would have seen a dramatic increase. That this has not happened illustrates the problem women face, particularly those without family connections, to find a place in the political arena.
A quota will automatically bring up the numbers. But will it make a difference? Who are the women who will get elected? The Yadavs believe that this will only empower the "elite class" of women. That can only be proven if tested.
Doesn't work
What has been tested and has not worked satisfactorily is the system of rotation of seats. Through the 73rd and 74th amendment, the 33 per cent reservation for women in panchayats and nagar palikas is implemented by reserving one third of the constituencies for women. But as this changes after each election, women cannot stand from the same constituency. A study by the Panchayati Raj Ministry had recommended that this system be scrapped as they found that only 15 per cent of the women got re-elected for a second term.
This happens because when male politicians find that their constituency has been reserved for women, they make their wives or women relatives contest. And once the constituency reverts to being general, they reclaim it and send the women back to the kitchen. Thus, the women literally tend the constituency for their men until it can be returned to them. This makes a mockery of the spirit in which the idea of quotas was conceived. Only a few women have managed to break through and win from "general" seats after first having won through the women's quota.
Needs review
Several alternative systems have been mooted but none of them are as simple to implement as the rotation system. Even so, given the experience at the local government level, the issue of whether the Bill should continue with the rotation system for Parliament and State assemblies must be addressed before the final draft of the Bill is placed in the House.
We love symbols in this country. We have a woman President and a woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha. We also have powerful women heading leading national parties. But all of this and the Women's Reservation Bill together do not necessarily add up to women's "empowerment". Symbolism serves a purpose if it is followed up by solid programmes and efforts that can make a difference to the lives of women, that can give them economic and physical security and above all that can guarantee that their voices will be heard regardless of their caste or class.
If the government fails to take on board some of the constructive suggestions made on the draft Women's Reservation Bill, it might not serve the purpose for which it has been conceived.Here we go again. Even those who feel most passionately on this subject must now feel weary at hearing the same set of arguments repeated for and against the long-pending Women's Reservation Bill. While across party lines women politicians are convinced that the Bill must go through - the notable exceptions being Jaya Prada of the Samajwadi Party and Uma Bharati of the Bharatiya Janashakti Party - the same set of male politicians who opposed it in the past continue to do so.
Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United), who will long be remembered for his remark that the Bill would bring into Parliament more women with short hair, has once again staked his claim to notoriety by threatening to drink poison rather than allow the Bill to pass. Although he has retracted this comment, his penchant for the dramatic remains unaltered over the years. Of the other Yadavs, Mulayam sets out the same arguments as Sharad, about a separate quota for Backward Castes, while Lalu, after initially maintaining a diplomatic silence, has now aligned himself with Mulayam and Sharad. And interestingly, while the BJP is whole-heartedly supporting the Bill, its allies, JD (U) and Shiv Sena are opposing it.
Real possibility
The major difference this time from the episodes in the past when the Bill was introduced and then pushed to committee in the face of opposition is that the government has enough support to get two-thirds of the votes in Parliament. Thus, regardless of the threats and noises made by those who oppose it, the Bill could be passed.
It will not happen overnight or even within the 100 days promised by the government because it is still in committee and that committee has to be reconstituted. Given the way these processes work, even setting up a new Committee on Law and Justice will take some time. So the earliest we could see the Bill emerge again would be in the winter session of Parliament. A great deal can happen before that eventuality.
In its anxiety to push through the Bill, the government could brush aside genuine reservations about the current draft of the law and place it before the House unchanged. If there is a constructive debate, something that is not at all guaranteed, then once again the Bill could go into committee to incorporate recommendations. If there is no debate but disruption, as in the past, the government might withdraw it and send it to committee. Or if there is some debate but little opposition, the Bill could go through in its current form.
The last outcome would be the most unsatisfactory. For, if the government fails to take on board some of the constructive suggestions that have been made on the draft, the Bill that is placed in Parliament and somehow pushed through might not serve the purpose for which it has been conceived. The main reason for advocating a quota for women in Parliament is because women do not have a level playing field in the world of politics. Even though political parties have promised to field more women candidates, in fact their numbers have not increased. More women were elected to the 15th Lok Sabha because women's success rate is much higher than that of men. Given this, if political parties had ensured that at least a third of their candidates were women, it is possible that their number in Parliament would have seen a dramatic increase. That this has not happened illustrates the problem women face, particularly those without family connections, to find a place in the political arena.
A quota will automatically bring up the numbers. But will it make a difference? Who are the women who will get elected? The Yadavs believe that this will only empower the "elite class" of women. That can only be proven if tested.
Doesn't work
What has been tested and has not worked satisfactorily is the system of rotation of seats. Through the 73rd and 74th amendment, the 33 per cent reservation for women in panchayats and nagar palikas is implemented by reserving one third of the constituencies for women. But as this changes after each election, women cannot stand from the same constituency. A study by the Panchayati Raj Ministry had recommended that this system be scrapped as they found that only 15 per cent of the women got re-elected for a second term.
This happens because when male politicians find that their constituency has been reserved for women, they make their wives or women relatives contest. And once the constituency reverts to being general, they reclaim it and send the women back to the kitchen. Thus, the women literally tend the constituency for their men until it can be returned to them. This makes a mockery of the spirit in which the idea of quotas was conceived. Only a few women have managed to break through and win from "general" seats after first having won through the women's quota.
Needs review
Several alternative systems have been mooted but none of them are as simple to implement as the rotation system. Even so, given the experience at the local government level, the issue of whether the Bill should continue with the rotation system for Parliament and State assemblies must be addressed before the final draft of the Bill is placed in the House.
We love symbols in this country. We have a woman President and a woman Speaker of the Lok Sabha. We also have powerful women heading leading national parties. But all of this and the Women's Reservation Bill together do not necessarily add up to women's "empowerment". Symbolism serves a purpose if it is followed up by solid programmes and efforts that can make a difference to the lives of women, that can give them economic and physical security and above all that can guarantee that their voices will be heard regardless of their caste or class.
Price of rice, price of power
By M H Ahssan
Most governments that stressed welfarist measures gained in last month's elections. Food prices and cheap rice are crucial, though not the sole issues.
Now that we have a Cabinet whose assets total close to Rs.5 billion on its own declaration, with Ministers worth over Rs.75 million each on average, it will be worth watching how it rises to the challenge of identifying with the poor and the hungry. That Rs.5 billion figure, painstakingly compiled by the National Election Watch, a coalition of over 1200 civil society organisations working across India, covers 64 of the 79 Ministers. The other 15 are Rajya Sabha members whose updated assets are yet to be computed.
True, these figures are skewed by the fact that the top five Ministers alone are worth Rs. 2 billion. However, as the NEW points out, the rest are not destitute. In all, 47 of the 64 are crorepatis. And the remaining 15 won't harm the score too much when their totals come in.
Together, they will preside over the destiny of, amongst others, 836 million Indians who "get by with less than Rs.20 a day" (National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector report, August 2007). This challenge will unfold in a Lok Sabha where the average worth of an MP is Rs.51 million. Again, this average too, is skewed by a chunk of 60-70 MPs of the 543 whose asset worth is relatively very low. On the other hand, many have notched up large gains in wealth during their first term as MPs.
In a complex and layered verdict driven by many factors, one seems clear: most governments that stressed welfarist measures - particularly cheap rice and employment - gained in last month's election results. This was regardless of which party was leading them - the Congress, the BJP, the BJD, the DMK or any other. Some of these measures might not have led to large numbers of people going out to vote for those governments. But they at least lowered hostility levels amongst the voters in a hungry nation. As Madhura Swaminathan points out, the FAO data confirm that "no country comes close to India in terms of the absolute number of people living in chronic hunger."
The hungry have had it pretty bad. The rise in food prices was extremely steep over the last five years, one of our more adverse periods in decades. Between just 2004 and 2008, the price of rice rose by over 45 per cent and of wheat by more than 60 per cent. Atta, edible oils, dals, milk and even salt saw rises of between 30 and 40 per cent. Lower or near-zero inflation has seen no drop in food prices. That the media never saw hunger and cheap food as a major poll factor says more about them than the issue.
The DMK's colour television set giveaway - the focus of much derisory media attention - was never a fraction as important as its provision of 20 kg of rice per family at Rs.1 a kg since September 2008. That too, for anyone with a ration card, without dividing people into the APL or BPL groups. Tamilnadu had already been providing rice at Rs.2 a kg for some years. It also took the NREGA seriously. The State government gained on both counts.
In Andhra Pradesh, like in Tamilnadu, the Congress government of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was helped by the presence of a third party - Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam - which drew a lot of anti-Congress votes, crippling the rival Telugu Desam Party. But YSR's was also a government which in its first year restored lakhs of cancelled BPL cards and issued lakhs of new ones. (The Hindu, Sept. 29, 2005) In nine years, Chandrababu Naidu's government issued no BPL card till the period just before the elections. That in a State where hunger and food have been huge issues even in urban areas.
Andhra Pradesh was where rice at Rs.2 a kg began with Naidu's father-in-law, then Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao. NTR's charisma was never in question - but rice at Rs.2 a kg helped, more than any other factor, to convert it into votes. Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy in fact stole the TDP's clothes when in April 2008 he brought back the Rs.2 a kg rice scheme - a year before the national polls. This was at 4 kg per person (or 20 kg per family of five). An earlier generation of Congress leaders had trashed NTR's pet project as a "costly gimmick." But Dr. Reddy took a more sensible line and gained from it.
During Mr. Naidu's years in power, so lavishly praised in the media for his reforms, the public was repeatedly hit by massive hikes in power charges, water rates, food prices and other costs. He has not managed to live down his record or regain credibility in 2009.
His adversary ran a decent NREGA programme. In the backward Mahbubnagar district, distress migrations fell as many found work under the NREGA. This at a time when food prices were biting. So much so that people in their 70s turned up at NREG sites for work - their Rs.200-a-month pensions blown away by the rise in food prices. Even on that front, though, the Andhra Pradesh government earned some credit. When it assumed power, there were 1.8 million people in the State getting old-age, widow and disability pensions - a paltry Rs.75 each. This was raised to Rs.500 for disabled people and Rs.200 for the rest. Hardly enough - but a lot more than before. And the number of people getting these pensions rose four-fold to 7.2 million. The State also has one of the country's better pension schemes for women.
In Orissa, Naveen Patnaik played his cards most effectively, gutting the BJP and corralling the Congress. But he also gained hugely from giving people cheap rice. In the burning hunger zones of Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput, 25 kg of rice had been offered to all families at Rs.2 a kg since mid-2008. In the rest of the State, this was restricted to BPL families. The government also gave out 10 kg of free rice to the poorest families in the KBK districts. This had a major impact in curbing starvation deaths. Mr. Patnaik also increased the numbers of those coming under pension schemes - and housing projects for the poor - quite significantly. (At the same time, he implemented the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations before the polls, sewing up the middle classes as well).
Sure, these were not the only issues on which people voted, but they played a big role (In the case of YSR and Mr. Patnaik, there was another factor that helped this along. The positive measures in both States were present and visible. The negatives - and they are explosive, like massive human displacement, SEZs, dangerous mining projects - are in the pipeline. Disasters waiting to happen but which will take two or three years to do so. Unless, of course, those policies change.)
In Chhattisgarh, however repugnant the ways of that government in many spheres, Chief Minister Raman Singh took a personal interest in declaring 35 kg per family at Rs.3 a kg. His government then unilaterally "increased" the number of people below the poverty line to almost 15 million - in a population of 20.8 million (2001 census). That is, close to 70 per cent of the population was "declared" BPL. This was done several months before the 2008 Assembly elections. It helped the government in both the State and national polls.
The Left Front in West Bengal failed on both fronts. The State saw rioting at ration shops last year as the Centre cut allocations of grain sharply. Yet West Bengal, which tops the States in rice production, moved towards provision of cheaper rice only early this year. Too reluctantly and too late. Its performance in the NREGS was also very poor. Hunger was a factor in the rout of the Left Front.
So what should those in power read into the poll results? That they have a mandate for more liberalisation, privatisation, high prices and other such reforms? Or that the price of rice could be the price of power? That jobs and security are vital? Food prices and cheap rice are crucial, though not the sole issues. Governments cannot bank on such moves already made to bring them perpetual gains. But the whole process is a step ahead and has raised the bar on public expectations. Sharp reversals could prove suicidal.
Most governments that stressed welfarist measures gained in last month's elections. Food prices and cheap rice are crucial, though not the sole issues.Now that we have a Cabinet whose assets total close to Rs.5 billion on its own declaration, with Ministers worth over Rs.75 million each on average, it will be worth watching how it rises to the challenge of identifying with the poor and the hungry. That Rs.5 billion figure, painstakingly compiled by the National Election Watch, a coalition of over 1200 civil society organisations working across India, covers 64 of the 79 Ministers. The other 15 are Rajya Sabha members whose updated assets are yet to be computed.
True, these figures are skewed by the fact that the top five Ministers alone are worth Rs. 2 billion. However, as the NEW points out, the rest are not destitute. In all, 47 of the 64 are crorepatis. And the remaining 15 won't harm the score too much when their totals come in.
Together, they will preside over the destiny of, amongst others, 836 million Indians who "get by with less than Rs.20 a day" (National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector report, August 2007). This challenge will unfold in a Lok Sabha where the average worth of an MP is Rs.51 million. Again, this average too, is skewed by a chunk of 60-70 MPs of the 543 whose asset worth is relatively very low. On the other hand, many have notched up large gains in wealth during their first term as MPs.
In a complex and layered verdict driven by many factors, one seems clear: most governments that stressed welfarist measures - particularly cheap rice and employment - gained in last month's election results. This was regardless of which party was leading them - the Congress, the BJP, the BJD, the DMK or any other. Some of these measures might not have led to large numbers of people going out to vote for those governments. But they at least lowered hostility levels amongst the voters in a hungry nation. As Madhura Swaminathan points out, the FAO data confirm that "no country comes close to India in terms of the absolute number of people living in chronic hunger."
The hungry have had it pretty bad. The rise in food prices was extremely steep over the last five years, one of our more adverse periods in decades. Between just 2004 and 2008, the price of rice rose by over 45 per cent and of wheat by more than 60 per cent. Atta, edible oils, dals, milk and even salt saw rises of between 30 and 40 per cent. Lower or near-zero inflation has seen no drop in food prices. That the media never saw hunger and cheap food as a major poll factor says more about them than the issue.
The DMK's colour television set giveaway - the focus of much derisory media attention - was never a fraction as important as its provision of 20 kg of rice per family at Rs.1 a kg since September 2008. That too, for anyone with a ration card, without dividing people into the APL or BPL groups. Tamilnadu had already been providing rice at Rs.2 a kg for some years. It also took the NREGA seriously. The State government gained on both counts.
In Andhra Pradesh, like in Tamilnadu, the Congress government of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was helped by the presence of a third party - Chiranjeevi's Praja Rajyam - which drew a lot of anti-Congress votes, crippling the rival Telugu Desam Party. But YSR's was also a government which in its first year restored lakhs of cancelled BPL cards and issued lakhs of new ones. (The Hindu, Sept. 29, 2005) In nine years, Chandrababu Naidu's government issued no BPL card till the period just before the elections. That in a State where hunger and food have been huge issues even in urban areas.
Andhra Pradesh was where rice at Rs.2 a kg began with Naidu's father-in-law, then Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao. NTR's charisma was never in question - but rice at Rs.2 a kg helped, more than any other factor, to convert it into votes. Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy in fact stole the TDP's clothes when in April 2008 he brought back the Rs.2 a kg rice scheme - a year before the national polls. This was at 4 kg per person (or 20 kg per family of five). An earlier generation of Congress leaders had trashed NTR's pet project as a "costly gimmick." But Dr. Reddy took a more sensible line and gained from it.
During Mr. Naidu's years in power, so lavishly praised in the media for his reforms, the public was repeatedly hit by massive hikes in power charges, water rates, food prices and other costs. He has not managed to live down his record or regain credibility in 2009.
His adversary ran a decent NREGA programme. In the backward Mahbubnagar district, distress migrations fell as many found work under the NREGA. This at a time when food prices were biting. So much so that people in their 70s turned up at NREG sites for work - their Rs.200-a-month pensions blown away by the rise in food prices. Even on that front, though, the Andhra Pradesh government earned some credit. When it assumed power, there were 1.8 million people in the State getting old-age, widow and disability pensions - a paltry Rs.75 each. This was raised to Rs.500 for disabled people and Rs.200 for the rest. Hardly enough - but a lot more than before. And the number of people getting these pensions rose four-fold to 7.2 million. The State also has one of the country's better pension schemes for women.
In Orissa, Naveen Patnaik played his cards most effectively, gutting the BJP and corralling the Congress. But he also gained hugely from giving people cheap rice. In the burning hunger zones of Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput, 25 kg of rice had been offered to all families at Rs.2 a kg since mid-2008. In the rest of the State, this was restricted to BPL families. The government also gave out 10 kg of free rice to the poorest families in the KBK districts. This had a major impact in curbing starvation deaths. Mr. Patnaik also increased the numbers of those coming under pension schemes - and housing projects for the poor - quite significantly. (At the same time, he implemented the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations before the polls, sewing up the middle classes as well).
Sure, these were not the only issues on which people voted, but they played a big role (In the case of YSR and Mr. Patnaik, there was another factor that helped this along. The positive measures in both States were present and visible. The negatives - and they are explosive, like massive human displacement, SEZs, dangerous mining projects - are in the pipeline. Disasters waiting to happen but which will take two or three years to do so. Unless, of course, those policies change.)
In Chhattisgarh, however repugnant the ways of that government in many spheres, Chief Minister Raman Singh took a personal interest in declaring 35 kg per family at Rs.3 a kg. His government then unilaterally "increased" the number of people below the poverty line to almost 15 million - in a population of 20.8 million (2001 census). That is, close to 70 per cent of the population was "declared" BPL. This was done several months before the 2008 Assembly elections. It helped the government in both the State and national polls.
The Left Front in West Bengal failed on both fronts. The State saw rioting at ration shops last year as the Centre cut allocations of grain sharply. Yet West Bengal, which tops the States in rice production, moved towards provision of cheaper rice only early this year. Too reluctantly and too late. Its performance in the NREGS was also very poor. Hunger was a factor in the rout of the Left Front.
So what should those in power read into the poll results? That they have a mandate for more liberalisation, privatisation, high prices and other such reforms? Or that the price of rice could be the price of power? That jobs and security are vital? Food prices and cheap rice are crucial, though not the sole issues. Governments cannot bank on such moves already made to bring them perpetual gains. But the whole process is a step ahead and has raised the bar on public expectations. Sharp reversals could prove suicidal.
An Intelligent Comment on Gay Relationships through Drama
By Madhusree Chatterjee
The humor of the original play was intact, but without making the characters come across as effeminate, as in Hindi films. Theatre director Sameer Thakur's Indian take on Doric Wilson's 1979 play "A Perfect Relationship" is an intelligent comment on gay relationships in contemporary India.
Adapted by Thakur of Cathaa Yatra, a Delhi-based community theatre company, "A Perfect Relationship" was staged to an overflowing audience at the American Centre in the capital Friday.
The play, which has won acclaim since it was staged in the capital in 2008, has been recommended for the Dublin International Theatre Festival in 2009 and has entered into the archives of the New York's National Museum of Performing Arts.
Written by American playwright Doric Wilson in 1979, "A Perfect Relationship" was first performed in New York in 1980.
Reminisces Doric in one his interviews about the making of the "A Perfect Relationship": "I was interviewing a potential roommate to share my Bedford Street apartment. When I asked him why he wanted to move, he answered, 'You could write a play about what happened to me.' It seems his lover brought home a trick (another man) and they decided to live together. So they kicked him out, but the trick only wanted the apartment so it was only a matter of time until the trick also evicted the lover. Three weeks later the first draft of 'A Perfect Relationship' was finished (but the interviewee didn't move in)."
For Thakur, the scenario of the queer New York City of the 1970s becomes the humorous story of Sunny and Rehaan, two flatmates, who are great friends, but not lovers as they insist.
The room-mates, who spend most of their gossiping and downing shots of Vodkas, suddenly find their lives turning upside down when Ashwin, a 'gay' friend decides to take over their lovely flat in the middle of south Delhi.
It leads to hilarious twists of feigned love, betrayal and cunning deceit. Manpreet, aka Mandy, the self-styled land lady adds to the confusion. She makes a living subletting small flats where she walks in anytime with her boyfriend of the day.
Mandy is loud, crass with her Punjabi-laced English, but good at heart.
The play ends with Ashwin getting what he wants - the flat and good guys losing out. But there's hope in the end.
The strength of the play lies in its insights into the 21st century gay world of Delhi.
The men have their insecurities - both in bed and outside - and are vulnerable to betrayals.
This alternative universe - like the straight world - is peopled by double-crossers who would do anything for money; even two-timing with a girl for small favors.
It comments on closet relationships of the affluent gay men. Ashwin is the rich guy - who wants to set up a love in Sunny and Rehaan's flat to carry on with his "personal life".
"Even my wife does not know about my personal life," he proclaims.
The dialogues are witty, earthy and have a domesticated feel about them. The set is minimal.
"We put it up for production in 2008 in Delhi and in NCR. And the reactions came as a pleasant surprise. Most people said it was a courageous effort because of the social context. We let the humor remain as it is - without deviating from the original play. The play has references to the current gay rights movement in India," director Sameer Thakur told IANS. Thakur also designed the set.
"The audience was not laughing at the gay characters in the play because they were natural- unlike the ones we come across in movies with their effeminate and comic ways," the director said.
Thakur got in touch Wilson last on the Internet seeking permission to "adapt and relocate the play to New Delhi". Wilson was initially doubtful.
"But then, I always say that my plays belong to the community they were written for. So I have my permission. And forgot all about it...," Wilson said in an interview to the media.
Thakur is preparing for his next play, "Godot Arrives". "I will try to push the boundary of humor in 'Godot Arrives'. It is a modern adaptation of 'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett."
The humor of the original play was intact, but without making the characters come across as effeminate, as in Hindi films. Theatre director Sameer Thakur's Indian take on Doric Wilson's 1979 play "A Perfect Relationship" is an intelligent comment on gay relationships in contemporary India. Adapted by Thakur of Cathaa Yatra, a Delhi-based community theatre company, "A Perfect Relationship" was staged to an overflowing audience at the American Centre in the capital Friday.
The play, which has won acclaim since it was staged in the capital in 2008, has been recommended for the Dublin International Theatre Festival in 2009 and has entered into the archives of the New York's National Museum of Performing Arts.
Written by American playwright Doric Wilson in 1979, "A Perfect Relationship" was first performed in New York in 1980.
Reminisces Doric in one his interviews about the making of the "A Perfect Relationship": "I was interviewing a potential roommate to share my Bedford Street apartment. When I asked him why he wanted to move, he answered, 'You could write a play about what happened to me.' It seems his lover brought home a trick (another man) and they decided to live together. So they kicked him out, but the trick only wanted the apartment so it was only a matter of time until the trick also evicted the lover. Three weeks later the first draft of 'A Perfect Relationship' was finished (but the interviewee didn't move in)."
For Thakur, the scenario of the queer New York City of the 1970s becomes the humorous story of Sunny and Rehaan, two flatmates, who are great friends, but not lovers as they insist.
The room-mates, who spend most of their gossiping and downing shots of Vodkas, suddenly find their lives turning upside down when Ashwin, a 'gay' friend decides to take over their lovely flat in the middle of south Delhi.
It leads to hilarious twists of feigned love, betrayal and cunning deceit. Manpreet, aka Mandy, the self-styled land lady adds to the confusion. She makes a living subletting small flats where she walks in anytime with her boyfriend of the day.
Mandy is loud, crass with her Punjabi-laced English, but good at heart.
The play ends with Ashwin getting what he wants - the flat and good guys losing out. But there's hope in the end.
The strength of the play lies in its insights into the 21st century gay world of Delhi.
The men have their insecurities - both in bed and outside - and are vulnerable to betrayals.
This alternative universe - like the straight world - is peopled by double-crossers who would do anything for money; even two-timing with a girl for small favors.
It comments on closet relationships of the affluent gay men. Ashwin is the rich guy - who wants to set up a love in Sunny and Rehaan's flat to carry on with his "personal life".
"Even my wife does not know about my personal life," he proclaims.
The dialogues are witty, earthy and have a domesticated feel about them. The set is minimal.
"We put it up for production in 2008 in Delhi and in NCR. And the reactions came as a pleasant surprise. Most people said it was a courageous effort because of the social context. We let the humor remain as it is - without deviating from the original play. The play has references to the current gay rights movement in India," director Sameer Thakur told IANS. Thakur also designed the set.
"The audience was not laughing at the gay characters in the play because they were natural- unlike the ones we come across in movies with their effeminate and comic ways," the director said.
Thakur got in touch Wilson last on the Internet seeking permission to "adapt and relocate the play to New Delhi". Wilson was initially doubtful.
"But then, I always say that my plays belong to the community they were written for. So I have my permission. And forgot all about it...," Wilson said in an interview to the media.
Thakur is preparing for his next play, "Godot Arrives". "I will try to push the boundary of humor in 'Godot Arrives'. It is a modern adaptation of 'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett."
Ethics, Torture, Utilitarianism and Law
By Gaurang Bhatt
A frequently referred to thought experiment (Gedanke-Versuch) problem tested on many cultures and ethnic groups is used to prove that there is a uniform ethics module in the human brain. The problem is as follows.
You observe a rail car careening down a slope and conclude that there is a brake or operator failure. You happen to be standing close to, but outside the rail track within immediate access to a switch that could divert the railcar to a side track. In the simplest version, on the rail path, the car is destined to take if you do not throw the switch to divert it are five workers. On the alternative path to which you could divert the railcar if you throw the switch is a solitary worker. What do you do?
Another relevant problem much quoted in recent debate on torture is the “Ticking Time Bomb” one. You have captured a terrorist who knows precisely where and when a nuclear bomb planted by his group is going to detonate soon. Your standard methods of interrogation fail. You have limited time. Do you torture him or used enhanced interrogation techniques as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bybee, Yoo etc. would say?
The third problem is that a pension fund for the elderly has bought senior secured debt of a company about to go bankrupt. A widow whose husband got cancer from exposure to asbestos, while working for the same company, has filed a claim against the company for damages. The widow is destitute as all the couple’s assets have been used up in the treatment of her husband’s cancer, caused by the negligence of the company. You as president of the country can use public money to refinance the company, force a merger of the company and save the jobs of ten thousand workers, but it would require the transfer of all meaningful assets of the company into a new entity, leaving little or nothing to be given to the senior secured debt holders or the wronged widow. What do you do?
According to some philosophers and many respondents to the dilemma, you divert the out of control railcar to the sidetrack, killing one person but saving the lives of five. For me it is a specious choice. Let me explain. You have observed the railcar from a distance before you were able to determine that it was out of control. No railcar on a track travels at faster than 750 miles per hour (Speed of sound in air) even without brakes. If you yelled loudly enough, your cry of warning would reach the five on the main track and one on the side track and allow enough time for them to jump off the track safely.
The first problem has multiple and higher levels of complication. In a jacked up version, the five on the main track and the one on the sidetrack are all tied down to the track and unable to get off the track. Again, most if not all people would divert the railcar and cause one death rather than five. Once again the contrived and constrained decision may not be the correct one. If the railcar is far away enough, you could throw the switch and run and free the solitary tied up man. He would be saved by you and the five by diversion of the railcar.
You are playing god by bringing about the death of one man not in direct harm’s way and would like to justify your actions as ethically correct. This is not an ethical decision but a utilitarianism based one, because it causes greater good for more at the cost of greater evil for one. Let us carry the problem to a greater complexity. This time you are on a terrace exactly overlooking the tracks and next to you, sitting on the parapet is a big fat man who could stop or derail the trolley car, if you pushed the big fat man over the parapet onto the track. He would be dead or paralyzed by the fall on the tracks or would be killed by the impact of the trolley and stop it. Would you do that? If so why, if not why not? Does it also not cause the death of one innocent man to save five? Many if not most respondents and philosophers say they won’t do it as it would be wrong. Others say those who would pull the switch should push the big fat man. In fact, the US and many nations at war justify death and destruction of civilians, sewage, water and electrical plants by aerial bombing, as acceptable and label it as unintended collateral damage, rather than a war crime which is what it is (just like torture is called enhanced interrogation technique).
The ticking time bomb problem is also a red herring, because of unreasonable and false assumptions involved. As our Don Torquemada would say, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns that should have prevented our ruling simpletons and depraved officials from committing the grievous errors. There is no certain knowledge that a nuclear weapon is on the verge of being detonated and it is not known whether your captured terrorist knows any details about it. There is also the simple common sense analysis often completely missing in most American leaders and officials that Islamic terrorists who are willing to indulge in definitive suicide bombing with predetermined malice and fully aware of the fatal consequence to them, are hardly likely to wilt and bare all under torture, if they know that within hours at most, they will be able to achieve their malignant desire of really harming America. The terrorist would purposely give false information and delay until the bomb went off. Most if not all would opt for martyrdom.
The unwillingness of Pakistan’s tribal areas to even consider betraying Al Qaeda leaders for eight years despite a price of millions of dollars on their heads, reveals the idiocy of American intelligence agencies just like their idiotic prediction of Ahmedinejad’s defeat in the Iranian elections and inability to protect Dr. Tiller from fanatic anti-abortion killers.. Only Lebanese elections, Pakistani and Indian leaders can be bought for pennies. This philosophical problem doesn’t bother America as fully half of Americans in a sample survey see nothing wrong with torturing prisoners. There is an apocryphal story that is attributed to some defunct newspaper or Mark Twain, who said that half the American legislators are idiots. The inmates of the Washington zoo protested vehemently and insisted on a retraction and apology. At which, Mark Twain is said to have responded, “I am sorry for my previous statement. I stand corrected, half of the American legislators are not idiots. The lawmakers then beamed in smug satisfaction with complete unawareness of what fools they had been made.
Coming to the last problem, it is the Chrysler case. Once again the Supreme Kangaroo Court of the US in its questionable wisdom threw out the case on the basis of trifling effects on the public good. As I said that is not law, it is utilitarianism at best and judgment by polls and public sentiment at worst. Senior secured creditors under US law have first priority claims. The very existence and birth of this nation and the Anglo-Saxon justice system is enshrined in the temple of protection of property over people. It is futile to accept any judicial thinking from a court with a history of convenient twisting of the law from Madison vs. Marbury, Dred Scott, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Lochner, Buck, Schenck vs. US, about face on capital punishment and others too many to enumerate.
Functional MRI studies of the brain of subjects during such complex difficult choices have shown the importance of the emotional and rational pathways of the human brain and their higher executive areas in the prefrontal cortex as arbiters of our moral judgment. The case of Phineas Gage and study of frontal leucotomy cases provide wonderful insights, as do split brain case studies for perception, personality and confabulation. What is even more interesting in studies of ethical or considerate behavior is the remarkable influence of priming by recently good or bad experiences prior to the test or real life situation. We are all as bad as the Pentagon generals. We fight the next war as a reaction to the recent past one and thus are the architects of our follies, which cause greater or newer disasters to the nation or our lives and also to the world and innocent others.
A frequently referred to thought experiment (Gedanke-Versuch) problem tested on many cultures and ethnic groups is used to prove that there is a uniform ethics module in the human brain. The problem is as follows.You observe a rail car careening down a slope and conclude that there is a brake or operator failure. You happen to be standing close to, but outside the rail track within immediate access to a switch that could divert the railcar to a side track. In the simplest version, on the rail path, the car is destined to take if you do not throw the switch to divert it are five workers. On the alternative path to which you could divert the railcar if you throw the switch is a solitary worker. What do you do?
Another relevant problem much quoted in recent debate on torture is the “Ticking Time Bomb” one. You have captured a terrorist who knows precisely where and when a nuclear bomb planted by his group is going to detonate soon. Your standard methods of interrogation fail. You have limited time. Do you torture him or used enhanced interrogation techniques as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bybee, Yoo etc. would say?
The third problem is that a pension fund for the elderly has bought senior secured debt of a company about to go bankrupt. A widow whose husband got cancer from exposure to asbestos, while working for the same company, has filed a claim against the company for damages. The widow is destitute as all the couple’s assets have been used up in the treatment of her husband’s cancer, caused by the negligence of the company. You as president of the country can use public money to refinance the company, force a merger of the company and save the jobs of ten thousand workers, but it would require the transfer of all meaningful assets of the company into a new entity, leaving little or nothing to be given to the senior secured debt holders or the wronged widow. What do you do?
According to some philosophers and many respondents to the dilemma, you divert the out of control railcar to the sidetrack, killing one person but saving the lives of five. For me it is a specious choice. Let me explain. You have observed the railcar from a distance before you were able to determine that it was out of control. No railcar on a track travels at faster than 750 miles per hour (Speed of sound in air) even without brakes. If you yelled loudly enough, your cry of warning would reach the five on the main track and one on the side track and allow enough time for them to jump off the track safely.
The first problem has multiple and higher levels of complication. In a jacked up version, the five on the main track and the one on the sidetrack are all tied down to the track and unable to get off the track. Again, most if not all people would divert the railcar and cause one death rather than five. Once again the contrived and constrained decision may not be the correct one. If the railcar is far away enough, you could throw the switch and run and free the solitary tied up man. He would be saved by you and the five by diversion of the railcar.
You are playing god by bringing about the death of one man not in direct harm’s way and would like to justify your actions as ethically correct. This is not an ethical decision but a utilitarianism based one, because it causes greater good for more at the cost of greater evil for one. Let us carry the problem to a greater complexity. This time you are on a terrace exactly overlooking the tracks and next to you, sitting on the parapet is a big fat man who could stop or derail the trolley car, if you pushed the big fat man over the parapet onto the track. He would be dead or paralyzed by the fall on the tracks or would be killed by the impact of the trolley and stop it. Would you do that? If so why, if not why not? Does it also not cause the death of one innocent man to save five? Many if not most respondents and philosophers say they won’t do it as it would be wrong. Others say those who would pull the switch should push the big fat man. In fact, the US and many nations at war justify death and destruction of civilians, sewage, water and electrical plants by aerial bombing, as acceptable and label it as unintended collateral damage, rather than a war crime which is what it is (just like torture is called enhanced interrogation technique).
The ticking time bomb problem is also a red herring, because of unreasonable and false assumptions involved. As our Don Torquemada would say, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns that should have prevented our ruling simpletons and depraved officials from committing the grievous errors. There is no certain knowledge that a nuclear weapon is on the verge of being detonated and it is not known whether your captured terrorist knows any details about it. There is also the simple common sense analysis often completely missing in most American leaders and officials that Islamic terrorists who are willing to indulge in definitive suicide bombing with predetermined malice and fully aware of the fatal consequence to them, are hardly likely to wilt and bare all under torture, if they know that within hours at most, they will be able to achieve their malignant desire of really harming America. The terrorist would purposely give false information and delay until the bomb went off. Most if not all would opt for martyrdom.
The unwillingness of Pakistan’s tribal areas to even consider betraying Al Qaeda leaders for eight years despite a price of millions of dollars on their heads, reveals the idiocy of American intelligence agencies just like their idiotic prediction of Ahmedinejad’s defeat in the Iranian elections and inability to protect Dr. Tiller from fanatic anti-abortion killers.. Only Lebanese elections, Pakistani and Indian leaders can be bought for pennies. This philosophical problem doesn’t bother America as fully half of Americans in a sample survey see nothing wrong with torturing prisoners. There is an apocryphal story that is attributed to some defunct newspaper or Mark Twain, who said that half the American legislators are idiots. The inmates of the Washington zoo protested vehemently and insisted on a retraction and apology. At which, Mark Twain is said to have responded, “I am sorry for my previous statement. I stand corrected, half of the American legislators are not idiots. The lawmakers then beamed in smug satisfaction with complete unawareness of what fools they had been made.
Coming to the last problem, it is the Chrysler case. Once again the Supreme Kangaroo Court of the US in its questionable wisdom threw out the case on the basis of trifling effects on the public good. As I said that is not law, it is utilitarianism at best and judgment by polls and public sentiment at worst. Senior secured creditors under US law have first priority claims. The very existence and birth of this nation and the Anglo-Saxon justice system is enshrined in the temple of protection of property over people. It is futile to accept any judicial thinking from a court with a history of convenient twisting of the law from Madison vs. Marbury, Dred Scott, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Lochner, Buck, Schenck vs. US, about face on capital punishment and others too many to enumerate.
Functional MRI studies of the brain of subjects during such complex difficult choices have shown the importance of the emotional and rational pathways of the human brain and their higher executive areas in the prefrontal cortex as arbiters of our moral judgment. The case of Phineas Gage and study of frontal leucotomy cases provide wonderful insights, as do split brain case studies for perception, personality and confabulation. What is even more interesting in studies of ethical or considerate behavior is the remarkable influence of priming by recently good or bad experiences prior to the test or real life situation. We are all as bad as the Pentagon generals. We fight the next war as a reaction to the recent past one and thus are the architects of our follies, which cause greater or newer disasters to the nation or our lives and also to the world and innocent others.
Half-Converted Kerala
By Ajith Kumar
Kerala, the most ‘progressive’ state in the Indian union, is more than half converted and religious conversion was unbecoming an issue in Kerala these days. But the recent demise of Kamala Suraiyya (Madhavikutty or Kamala Das) has highlighted the issue once again. The story goes that she was lured into Islam by the tricks and nuptial promises of a much married, learned and cunning lawmaker belonging to an overtly communal party. Madhavikutty’s literary works represent some of the finest aspects of uninhibited and immaculate Hindu culture that had once prevailed in most parts of Kerala. She could easily differentiate between the quintessence of pristine love of ‘gopikas’ for Krishna vis-Ã -vis the cheap commonplace lust, by deft handling of both in her stories and poetry. The fact that even such a tall literary figure could fall an easy victim shows the reach of proselytization forces in a region of India with the highest literacy rate.
What is happening in Kerala today is bound to be repeated in all other parts of India as our skewed version of secular education is spreading everywhere. Like in Kerala today, Hindus are bound to reduce themselves to a minority community in their own nation one day.
The unfortunate saga of conversion in Kerala begins from around 1500 AD when the first European colonizers landed at one of those beautiful beaches of Kerala. Though we had traders, fugitives and tourists landing at Kerala’s long seashore from time immemorial, damages by them remained limited to their excreta in the coastal belts. The highly structured Kerala society then was impenetrable to foreigners who were much below in terms of social and economic evolution.
Cooked-up stories about adventures of one Saint Thomas who could convert the forward castes are nothing but mythology invented as afterthoughts. Kerala’s decadence started much later when the naturally symbiotic caste system became rigid and triggered internal revolts. Foreign religions were waiting at the sea and seacoasts for such an internal upheaval for easy penetration into the much coveted God’s Own Country. In 500 years they could convert more than 50% of the population is no mean achievement for the proponents of the two major religions in the world today.
Silent Terrorism
What happened in the last five centuries and what is happening in Kerala today is nothing but silent terrorism in the form of organized and externally fuelled religious conversion. It was Christianity which started first with the intention of conditioning the ground ready for European colonization. In every colony of ‘ours’, we need quite a few of our ‘own’ people.
In distant lands the only way to get ‘our own’ people is by way of aggressive and accelerated cultural conversion. Religion is an integral part of culture and religious conversion is the best tool available for easy conditioning of the target population. Increasing rigidity of the caste system provided a golden opportunity for the European missionaries to penetrate into the Indian society. Enemies of India had budgeted big sums for the project and India’s toiling masses could be easily made disgruntled and aggrieved. As most of them were lacking any formal education, tricking them into a new religious system was easy with the help of material inducements in terms of milk powder and rice.
The next predator in Kerala started their work in terms of organized conversion much later. Though we had sizeable number of Muslim population in the coastal areas, especially in the north Malabar region, their intrusion into the interiors of Kerala as an organized religion is only about one century old. The Mapillah Rebellion in 1921 was perhaps the first organized assault aimed at religious conversion under the guise of so many other objectives. Though North India was under Muslim rule for several centuries, its influence in the southern regions of the country was minimal.
Also their enmity with the European colonial powers was not helpful in increasing their numerical strength by targeting Hindus. But the situation has changed drastically in the 20th century when millions of Oil money started flowing into Kerala. Increasing their number by all means and capturing power by organized might is high on the agenda of the Muslim mind of Kerala.
Suicidal Indifference
Any nation or people in decay will ultimately have only themselves to blame. The current status of Hindus in Kerala is at a highly critical juncture in this regard. Three or four prominent Hindu sections are totally indifferent about the overall status of the Hindu religion and society in Kerala today. The leaders of these sections are forgetting one of the most important rules of science and history – any culture can survive only if there is the minimum quantity. Most of these sub-sections of the Hindu society namely Nairs, Ezhavas, Brahmins and OBCS are fighting more among themselves than for their combined rights. They have left their weakest brothers (Adivasis) at the complete mercy of the two predators vying for numbers and real estate. Almost the entire five lakh Adivasis of Kerala will either die off or get converted, and their entire property will ultimately lie with one of the predating groups.
Much has been said and written about the suicidal indifference of Hindus in Kerala and the catastrophe impending their community a few generations from now. None of the Hindu community leaders of any significance have shown the courage to speak up for consolidation and caution. It will be only at their extreme peril that the entire spectrum of Hindu society in Kerala can feign ignorance to the following basic FACTS:
Hinduism is no more the dominant religion in Kerala. As half of those born as Hindus are genuine communists, Hinduism is only at par with Islam and Christianity in Kerala. And uninhibited religious conversion is still rampant in many parts of Kerala.
Kerala has the highest (family) suicidal rate in the world and at least 75% of them are Hindus.
Hindu temples are the only one in government custody. All income from temples (which are only from Hindus) flow into the common government coffers.
Kerala politics is overwhelmingly dominated by leaders belonging to the two dominant communities and parties which are overtly communal (Muslim League and Kerala Congress).
There is almost complete monopoly of the two dominant communities in the print and electronic media in Kerala.
Almost all Hindu families in the current generation have only two children. But one can invariably find three children in all Christian families and four children in most Muslim families. This trend is almost confirmed if they are more educated and richer. This clearly shows a determined and deliberate effort to increase the numbers.
Christian clergy and Muslim religious leaders are freely indulging in politics in Kerala which is a part of the so-called secular republic of India. Many times they openly challenge the authority of democratically elected governments and the rule of law, with no impunity.
Ownership of land (especially high valued), number of professionals (doctors, IAS officers etc) and untaxed (and unaccounted) income from abroad are disproportionately high in favor of the two dominant communities in Kerala.
The few critical aspects listed above point to a determined and calculated move by the foreign religious ideologies to establish their superiority over Kerala within one or two decades. Both are now equally organized, resourceful and determined to achieve their ultimate aim. The apparent discordant notes among subsidiary factions within these religious forces are designed and serve as deceptive distracters for those who are opposing the move. In Kerala (also India) today, anything Hindu or Hindutva is condemnably communal, Muslim or Islamic is secularly acceptable and Christian or Christianity is laudably broad-minded. Any one who talks anything about Hinduism or Hindus are ostracized in public life and politically unacceptable.
Barring unforeseen developments, Kerala’s Hindu goose will be cooked and eaten with full satisfaction as precisely planned. And once that is digested, the harvest of entire South India is only one decade away and Indian nation a few more. Only organized reforms and determined positive action can save Hinduism from the combined onslaught of its three known enemies.
Kerala, the most ‘progressive’ state in the Indian union, is more than half converted and religious conversion was unbecoming an issue in Kerala these days. But the recent demise of Kamala Suraiyya (Madhavikutty or Kamala Das) has highlighted the issue once again. The story goes that she was lured into Islam by the tricks and nuptial promises of a much married, learned and cunning lawmaker belonging to an overtly communal party. Madhavikutty’s literary works represent some of the finest aspects of uninhibited and immaculate Hindu culture that had once prevailed in most parts of Kerala. She could easily differentiate between the quintessence of pristine love of ‘gopikas’ for Krishna vis-Ã -vis the cheap commonplace lust, by deft handling of both in her stories and poetry. The fact that even such a tall literary figure could fall an easy victim shows the reach of proselytization forces in a region of India with the highest literacy rate.What is happening in Kerala today is bound to be repeated in all other parts of India as our skewed version of secular education is spreading everywhere. Like in Kerala today, Hindus are bound to reduce themselves to a minority community in their own nation one day.
The unfortunate saga of conversion in Kerala begins from around 1500 AD when the first European colonizers landed at one of those beautiful beaches of Kerala. Though we had traders, fugitives and tourists landing at Kerala’s long seashore from time immemorial, damages by them remained limited to their excreta in the coastal belts. The highly structured Kerala society then was impenetrable to foreigners who were much below in terms of social and economic evolution.
Cooked-up stories about adventures of one Saint Thomas who could convert the forward castes are nothing but mythology invented as afterthoughts. Kerala’s decadence started much later when the naturally symbiotic caste system became rigid and triggered internal revolts. Foreign religions were waiting at the sea and seacoasts for such an internal upheaval for easy penetration into the much coveted God’s Own Country. In 500 years they could convert more than 50% of the population is no mean achievement for the proponents of the two major religions in the world today.
Silent Terrorism
What happened in the last five centuries and what is happening in Kerala today is nothing but silent terrorism in the form of organized and externally fuelled religious conversion. It was Christianity which started first with the intention of conditioning the ground ready for European colonization. In every colony of ‘ours’, we need quite a few of our ‘own’ people.
In distant lands the only way to get ‘our own’ people is by way of aggressive and accelerated cultural conversion. Religion is an integral part of culture and religious conversion is the best tool available for easy conditioning of the target population. Increasing rigidity of the caste system provided a golden opportunity for the European missionaries to penetrate into the Indian society. Enemies of India had budgeted big sums for the project and India’s toiling masses could be easily made disgruntled and aggrieved. As most of them were lacking any formal education, tricking them into a new religious system was easy with the help of material inducements in terms of milk powder and rice.
The next predator in Kerala started their work in terms of organized conversion much later. Though we had sizeable number of Muslim population in the coastal areas, especially in the north Malabar region, their intrusion into the interiors of Kerala as an organized religion is only about one century old. The Mapillah Rebellion in 1921 was perhaps the first organized assault aimed at religious conversion under the guise of so many other objectives. Though North India was under Muslim rule for several centuries, its influence in the southern regions of the country was minimal.
Also their enmity with the European colonial powers was not helpful in increasing their numerical strength by targeting Hindus. But the situation has changed drastically in the 20th century when millions of Oil money started flowing into Kerala. Increasing their number by all means and capturing power by organized might is high on the agenda of the Muslim mind of Kerala.
Suicidal Indifference
Any nation or people in decay will ultimately have only themselves to blame. The current status of Hindus in Kerala is at a highly critical juncture in this regard. Three or four prominent Hindu sections are totally indifferent about the overall status of the Hindu religion and society in Kerala today. The leaders of these sections are forgetting one of the most important rules of science and history – any culture can survive only if there is the minimum quantity. Most of these sub-sections of the Hindu society namely Nairs, Ezhavas, Brahmins and OBCS are fighting more among themselves than for their combined rights. They have left their weakest brothers (Adivasis) at the complete mercy of the two predators vying for numbers and real estate. Almost the entire five lakh Adivasis of Kerala will either die off or get converted, and their entire property will ultimately lie with one of the predating groups.
Much has been said and written about the suicidal indifference of Hindus in Kerala and the catastrophe impending their community a few generations from now. None of the Hindu community leaders of any significance have shown the courage to speak up for consolidation and caution. It will be only at their extreme peril that the entire spectrum of Hindu society in Kerala can feign ignorance to the following basic FACTS:
Hinduism is no more the dominant religion in Kerala. As half of those born as Hindus are genuine communists, Hinduism is only at par with Islam and Christianity in Kerala. And uninhibited religious conversion is still rampant in many parts of Kerala.
Kerala has the highest (family) suicidal rate in the world and at least 75% of them are Hindus.
Hindu temples are the only one in government custody. All income from temples (which are only from Hindus) flow into the common government coffers.
Kerala politics is overwhelmingly dominated by leaders belonging to the two dominant communities and parties which are overtly communal (Muslim League and Kerala Congress).
There is almost complete monopoly of the two dominant communities in the print and electronic media in Kerala.
Almost all Hindu families in the current generation have only two children. But one can invariably find three children in all Christian families and four children in most Muslim families. This trend is almost confirmed if they are more educated and richer. This clearly shows a determined and deliberate effort to increase the numbers.
Christian clergy and Muslim religious leaders are freely indulging in politics in Kerala which is a part of the so-called secular republic of India. Many times they openly challenge the authority of democratically elected governments and the rule of law, with no impunity.
Ownership of land (especially high valued), number of professionals (doctors, IAS officers etc) and untaxed (and unaccounted) income from abroad are disproportionately high in favor of the two dominant communities in Kerala.
The few critical aspects listed above point to a determined and calculated move by the foreign religious ideologies to establish their superiority over Kerala within one or two decades. Both are now equally organized, resourceful and determined to achieve their ultimate aim. The apparent discordant notes among subsidiary factions within these religious forces are designed and serve as deceptive distracters for those who are opposing the move. In Kerala (also India) today, anything Hindu or Hindutva is condemnably communal, Muslim or Islamic is secularly acceptable and Christian or Christianity is laudably broad-minded. Any one who talks anything about Hinduism or Hindus are ostracized in public life and politically unacceptable.
Barring unforeseen developments, Kerala’s Hindu goose will be cooked and eaten with full satisfaction as precisely planned. And once that is digested, the harvest of entire South India is only one decade away and Indian nation a few more. Only organized reforms and determined positive action can save Hinduism from the combined onslaught of its three known enemies.
Paid Hobby - A Dream Career
By Samiya Anwar
A habit which cost money is said to be a hobby by most people. Well, what if your hobby makes money for you? Interesting, right! Doing something you like to and earn money out of it. This is what you can say is thinking in an unconventional way, different and out of ordinary. Isn’t it?
Always at the hour of choosing a career, parents and peer pressure made us opt for either an engineering stream or medical leaving our hobbies back into schools or limited to homes. Now, no more, the parental attitudes have significantly shifted. They have grown up with the generation Y. They are too thinking out of the box. Parents, today let the children choose a career of choice.
Thanks to global recession the change gear is witnessed because of it. The parent’s thinks there is no good job for an engineer and computer graduates. The shift is good as doing something you enjoy can help you think more creatively and give you confidence. Moreover, hobbies can enhance your creativity. Importantly, it helps you think more clearly and sharpen your focus.
Besides, Webster's Dictionary defines a hobby as "a pursuit outside one's regular occupation". It has helped many to build a part-time and also full-time career successfully. In words of Saumya, a painter who teaches nib painting to neighborhood children opines, ‘Creativity comes from soul. Artists are like scientist who observe and record the environment and own mind. A way of expression it is’ She is not a recognized famed painter, but has utilized her hobby teaching others.
A hobby can be a job. A dream job which everybody loves, say a Dream Career. We all have hobbies. Art has always been a favorite subject to the peoples. I still recall my art class in school, “I wish I can have arts class all day”. Sketching, writing essays and poems is something always I was passionate about. Now that helped me to make a career as a freelancer.
However, it is truism that the applications for offbeat subjects like mass communication, Journalism, psychology, library sciences have doubled according to the Osmania University this year. To a larger and larger degree people are seen opting for arts as it is said to be something “Uber Cool” according to most youngsters these days.
Sachin wants to pursue a career in Journalism. It is because; his engineer brother is on hunt for a good job after being fired by Batronics. He says, despite of economic slowdown the arts students have found good jobs in content writing and teaching. He do not want to be one engineer among the others seeking for jobs.
Hobby is where a person is more skilled at. Between work and family, always we have little time or energy left for hobbies. And without hobbies, though, life feels ordinary. So, it is no wrong if you turned that hobby into a career. If you are smart and creative there are many work and employment ideas providing opportunities that you can choose to start a career or build your own business
For instance, if your hobby is food related. Enter the health department say kitchen. Make a dream come true if your family and friends always comments on your talent and cooking is your favorite thing to do. Turn your hobby into a career.
If you’re sound enough open your own restaurant or become a caterer for private and corporate parties. After a short period of time your business will grow through recommendations. Well, what are friends and contacts for? Also you can write a cookbook or e-cookbook and hold cooking classes for kids. A cooking career can be very lucrative. Start small and take any opportunity you can to prove yourself.
Writing is another lucrative profession. If you have the talent cash on your skills through writing, editing, or proof reading. A degree in English literature or journalism automatically qualifies you for a career in writing. It is easy to earn some bucks for grocery and bills for ladies who want to freelance.
There are companies, e-newspapers, magazines online who own a website will pay you for providing good content to them. You can make a good living by offering your writing skills in the form of articles, blogs, forum posts, etc. it is a good home career opportunity where the better the content you provide, the better the pay will be for the work.
Another paid hobby is Photography. If clicking pictures is what amuses you. Great! Don’t stop only to family photographs. You can try your hand at weddings and parties where photographers are paid well. Photographs make a statement in its own way. The real snapshot of locality and rural areas makes good stories in newspapers if being sold.
Without forgetting the most attractive hobbyists today are singers, dancers, actors and models. Music is something every three in ten trying out. Same is with acting, dancing is these days. Every one is switching to glamour world. That is why the reality shows like SA re ga ma pa, Little Champs, Star Voice of India are more popular than the news stories.
The child actors are earning fairly well and parents have no problem sending their kids to the studios missing out the play and academics. Children are earning for their future and also supporting parents from tender age.
Most hobbies are based on creative interests and the creative field attracts so many talented people. There is high competition. It requires immense hard work. It takes effort to turn hobby into career and earn. Being a paid professional you have to know the basics business practices. Without knowledge and seriousness you cannot proceed.
And store in the mind, it is important to be proactive and intelligible in the beginning as there are many hoaxes out there and you should be careful to avoid them especially if going on an unknown road dreaming high. Because a hobby turned into a job is challenging. It needs lot of practice to expertise in a particular field. The focus is important to establish yourself; only then your hobby can be your job, a dream job. So for all those who dream, happy dreaming!
COULD YOU GET PAID FOR HOBBIES?
If you spend all day in a job waiting to get home so you can crack on with your hobby, then chances are, you could probably make some money at it.
Because not all hobbies are going to be money makers, the first thing to do is to take a good look at your past time and view it from a different angle.
Think about what you are doing and how it might be profitable. Are you creating something? Providing a service? Doing an action that could offer valuable information? Does your hobby give you insider knowledge?
For the purpose of this article, I phoned up my sister and asked her what her hobby was.
My sister is four months pregnant, so much of her activities have changed in the past weeks, but one constant passion she has is ‘reading.’ Taking my sisters hobby as an example, I decided to look at if you could make money from reading.
I followed through these three steps and worked out how her hobby of reading could be changed into a business. In your case, change ‘reading’ and insert whatever it is that you love to do and lets see how we can start earning some money from it.
Would people pay you to do your hobby?
Truth is, in today’s market, most things are sold on marketing and ideas rather than direct merit. When thinking about if your hobby has a market, think about who would pay for it, what your audience is and why they would pay for your service.
My sisters passion is reading. She loves thrillers. She reads fast and she always has a comment about the book, in fact, even if my sister hates the book, she’ll keep reading till the end. So who would pay her to do this and why would they pay her?
Aspiring authors might pay for a detailed critique on their unpublished book. Book publishers might pay for a reader to go through the slush piles, but those positions might need more experience than a thriller enthusiast.
However, publishers might also need an honest account of books from a regular reader to write a review.
OK, so now I know that my sisters service is marketable. What next?
Can it be developed?
If any hobby is to make any kind of income, it has to have the capacity to be up-scaled, and up-scaled with ease. Any hobby is probably done at first on the small scale, which is fine for some extra income, but if you want to make a living out of it, think about if it can be developed and how. How long will it take you to deliver the goods and what would it involve?
My sister takes about three days to read a book cover to cover. But then, life happens and sometimes it’s longer. So is her hobby easy to upscale? What if a publisher wanted six books reviewed in one week? Well, she could start to pass her work onto someone else – I know two other people off the top of my head who would jump at the chance to read and be paid for it.
She could also start a ‘book club with a difference,’ where she gave out ‘free’ books and recorded conversations about the reviews, perhaps even set up a website for it. In fact, that would also tie up with her marketing plan – she could set up ‘book clubs with a difference’ and sell the idea to publishers that she was getting immediate feedback, or to other readers and take a commission on the books she sold. Great. Now this idea is beginning to develop.
What else is involved?
When a hobby becomes a business it can change. My sister reading for pleasure is different to my sister reading for money.
Just a quick outline of the example business above shows that you also need to think hard about marketing, organisation, profitability and motivation.
The bottom line is how far you want to take it.
You could carry on doing your hobby as a one man operation for extra income or upscale it and develop it as a business. So for starters I would recommend that my sister approach the local paper and see if it is interested in book reviews perhaps from local authors. She could then research how to write a great book review, see if she liked reading for money and if she did and went on to approach other magazines, she’d have some published examples.
A quick search on the Internet has brought up lots of sites offering free books for reviews and also some excellent advice about writing reviews so it is workable.
So whatever your hobby, have a think and see if there is any potential for you to get paid for it, in most cases you’ll probably be able to.
A habit which cost money is said to be a hobby by most people. Well, what if your hobby makes money for you? Interesting, right! Doing something you like to and earn money out of it. This is what you can say is thinking in an unconventional way, different and out of ordinary. Isn’t it? Always at the hour of choosing a career, parents and peer pressure made us opt for either an engineering stream or medical leaving our hobbies back into schools or limited to homes. Now, no more, the parental attitudes have significantly shifted. They have grown up with the generation Y. They are too thinking out of the box. Parents, today let the children choose a career of choice.
Thanks to global recession the change gear is witnessed because of it. The parent’s thinks there is no good job for an engineer and computer graduates. The shift is good as doing something you enjoy can help you think more creatively and give you confidence. Moreover, hobbies can enhance your creativity. Importantly, it helps you think more clearly and sharpen your focus.
Besides, Webster's Dictionary defines a hobby as "a pursuit outside one's regular occupation". It has helped many to build a part-time and also full-time career successfully. In words of Saumya, a painter who teaches nib painting to neighborhood children opines, ‘Creativity comes from soul. Artists are like scientist who observe and record the environment and own mind. A way of expression it is’ She is not a recognized famed painter, but has utilized her hobby teaching others.
A hobby can be a job. A dream job which everybody loves, say a Dream Career. We all have hobbies. Art has always been a favorite subject to the peoples. I still recall my art class in school, “I wish I can have arts class all day”. Sketching, writing essays and poems is something always I was passionate about. Now that helped me to make a career as a freelancer.
However, it is truism that the applications for offbeat subjects like mass communication, Journalism, psychology, library sciences have doubled according to the Osmania University this year. To a larger and larger degree people are seen opting for arts as it is said to be something “Uber Cool” according to most youngsters these days.
Sachin wants to pursue a career in Journalism. It is because; his engineer brother is on hunt for a good job after being fired by Batronics. He says, despite of economic slowdown the arts students have found good jobs in content writing and teaching. He do not want to be one engineer among the others seeking for jobs.
Hobby is where a person is more skilled at. Between work and family, always we have little time or energy left for hobbies. And without hobbies, though, life feels ordinary. So, it is no wrong if you turned that hobby into a career. If you are smart and creative there are many work and employment ideas providing opportunities that you can choose to start a career or build your own business
For instance, if your hobby is food related. Enter the health department say kitchen. Make a dream come true if your family and friends always comments on your talent and cooking is your favorite thing to do. Turn your hobby into a career.
If you’re sound enough open your own restaurant or become a caterer for private and corporate parties. After a short period of time your business will grow through recommendations. Well, what are friends and contacts for? Also you can write a cookbook or e-cookbook and hold cooking classes for kids. A cooking career can be very lucrative. Start small and take any opportunity you can to prove yourself.
Writing is another lucrative profession. If you have the talent cash on your skills through writing, editing, or proof reading. A degree in English literature or journalism automatically qualifies you for a career in writing. It is easy to earn some bucks for grocery and bills for ladies who want to freelance.
There are companies, e-newspapers, magazines online who own a website will pay you for providing good content to them. You can make a good living by offering your writing skills in the form of articles, blogs, forum posts, etc. it is a good home career opportunity where the better the content you provide, the better the pay will be for the work.
Another paid hobby is Photography. If clicking pictures is what amuses you. Great! Don’t stop only to family photographs. You can try your hand at weddings and parties where photographers are paid well. Photographs make a statement in its own way. The real snapshot of locality and rural areas makes good stories in newspapers if being sold.
Without forgetting the most attractive hobbyists today are singers, dancers, actors and models. Music is something every three in ten trying out. Same is with acting, dancing is these days. Every one is switching to glamour world. That is why the reality shows like SA re ga ma pa, Little Champs, Star Voice of India are more popular than the news stories.
The child actors are earning fairly well and parents have no problem sending their kids to the studios missing out the play and academics. Children are earning for their future and also supporting parents from tender age.
Most hobbies are based on creative interests and the creative field attracts so many talented people. There is high competition. It requires immense hard work. It takes effort to turn hobby into career and earn. Being a paid professional you have to know the basics business practices. Without knowledge and seriousness you cannot proceed.
And store in the mind, it is important to be proactive and intelligible in the beginning as there are many hoaxes out there and you should be careful to avoid them especially if going on an unknown road dreaming high. Because a hobby turned into a job is challenging. It needs lot of practice to expertise in a particular field. The focus is important to establish yourself; only then your hobby can be your job, a dream job. So for all those who dream, happy dreaming!
COULD YOU GET PAID FOR HOBBIES?
If you spend all day in a job waiting to get home so you can crack on with your hobby, then chances are, you could probably make some money at it.
Because not all hobbies are going to be money makers, the first thing to do is to take a good look at your past time and view it from a different angle.
Think about what you are doing and how it might be profitable. Are you creating something? Providing a service? Doing an action that could offer valuable information? Does your hobby give you insider knowledge?
For the purpose of this article, I phoned up my sister and asked her what her hobby was.
My sister is four months pregnant, so much of her activities have changed in the past weeks, but one constant passion she has is ‘reading.’ Taking my sisters hobby as an example, I decided to look at if you could make money from reading.
I followed through these three steps and worked out how her hobby of reading could be changed into a business. In your case, change ‘reading’ and insert whatever it is that you love to do and lets see how we can start earning some money from it.
Would people pay you to do your hobby?
Truth is, in today’s market, most things are sold on marketing and ideas rather than direct merit. When thinking about if your hobby has a market, think about who would pay for it, what your audience is and why they would pay for your service.
My sisters passion is reading. She loves thrillers. She reads fast and she always has a comment about the book, in fact, even if my sister hates the book, she’ll keep reading till the end. So who would pay her to do this and why would they pay her?
Aspiring authors might pay for a detailed critique on their unpublished book. Book publishers might pay for a reader to go through the slush piles, but those positions might need more experience than a thriller enthusiast.
However, publishers might also need an honest account of books from a regular reader to write a review.
OK, so now I know that my sisters service is marketable. What next?
Can it be developed?
If any hobby is to make any kind of income, it has to have the capacity to be up-scaled, and up-scaled with ease. Any hobby is probably done at first on the small scale, which is fine for some extra income, but if you want to make a living out of it, think about if it can be developed and how. How long will it take you to deliver the goods and what would it involve?
My sister takes about three days to read a book cover to cover. But then, life happens and sometimes it’s longer. So is her hobby easy to upscale? What if a publisher wanted six books reviewed in one week? Well, she could start to pass her work onto someone else – I know two other people off the top of my head who would jump at the chance to read and be paid for it.
She could also start a ‘book club with a difference,’ where she gave out ‘free’ books and recorded conversations about the reviews, perhaps even set up a website for it. In fact, that would also tie up with her marketing plan – she could set up ‘book clubs with a difference’ and sell the idea to publishers that she was getting immediate feedback, or to other readers and take a commission on the books she sold. Great. Now this idea is beginning to develop.
What else is involved?
When a hobby becomes a business it can change. My sister reading for pleasure is different to my sister reading for money.
Just a quick outline of the example business above shows that you also need to think hard about marketing, organisation, profitability and motivation.
The bottom line is how far you want to take it.
You could carry on doing your hobby as a one man operation for extra income or upscale it and develop it as a business. So for starters I would recommend that my sister approach the local paper and see if it is interested in book reviews perhaps from local authors. She could then research how to write a great book review, see if she liked reading for money and if she did and went on to approach other magazines, she’d have some published examples.
A quick search on the Internet has brought up lots of sites offering free books for reviews and also some excellent advice about writing reviews so it is workable.
So whatever your hobby, have a think and see if there is any potential for you to get paid for it, in most cases you’ll probably be able to.
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