The flip side of going Rural: A look at the challenges in cracking the Indian rural market

There has been a considerable amount of discussion on rural India of late (and not just on Pluggd.In) and the opportunity it presents and one almost gets tired of the rate at which CK Prahlad is being quoted these days. Rural India definitely does present immense opportunity but for everyone trying to make millions out of it, there are a few words of caution on the challenges that the landscape presents. I will draw upon my experience of having worked on three projects in the last 8 years targeting consumers in rural India with internet technologies, MVAS and general ICT infrastructure at Media Labs, IIT Kanpur, Intuit and the Hewlett Packard I-community to highlight some of the challenges involved. Distribution and logistics: Infrastructure continues to be a challenge in rural India. Moreover, the lack of an efficient distribution network prevents penetration of products/services into rural India. One of the most innovative models in recent times has been the usage of the postal service by mobile operators to penetrate scratch cards to the villages. The Indian Postal Service with 155000 post offices is the largest distribution network in the world, and has all of 120000 outlets in Indiaâ€™s villages. Payment collection: The majority of the rural population is still unbanked.