Rural retail got a boost with a report saying the direct impact of it will be employment generation and increased revenue and tax generation in rural areas and help farmers get genuine products.
The report by Yes Bank presented at a conference on ‘Rural Retail’ organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in New Delhi Thursday, said as the rural retail phenomenon evolves, it can be expected to improve the standard of life in rural areas and thus check migration.
With increased attention to the rural areas by the corporate sector on the back of growing demand, there is a catalytic growth in infrastructure development in the rural areas, said the 43-page report.
With retail business being labour intensive, the report said there is ample scope for creation of both direct and indirect employment in rural retail and ancillary services.
The generation of indirect employment may be expected to result from direct fallout of the changes in the value chain at the manufacturers’level, as well as other support activities like grading, sorting, packaging, storage, transportation and various other support services.
The report said organized rural retail may enable manufacturers to isolate retail chain data which is very essential for performance tracking and evaluation of product category.
It said organized rural retail is also likely to promote improved farming technologies which will directly impact agricultural production both in quantity and quality, thereby helping better crop realization to the benefit of the farmers.
With corporates like Tatas, ITC, DCM, Godrej Agrovet, Triveni Engineers and Indian Oil Corporation setting up retail outlets in rural areas beginning in 2002 and currently totaling about 2365, it has checked the sale of duplicate and spurious products and with these companies planning to expand their operations, the report said “rural consumers would get access to products of better quality at affordable prices.”
