Monday, March 19, 2012
Weekly Market Visit
Weekly markets namely haat or sundae are one of the oldest establishments of Indian rural marketing system. This has evolved over centuries and is an aggregation of fragile rural demand and supply. While it is not feasible to cater to the requirements of a single village by a set of traders, the rural haat or sundae system helps in aggregating both sellers and consumers of a cluster of villages at a common place and that has grown to become and institution by itself. Cultural events and festivals have come to be associated with weekly markets. Some of these markets have grown so big that they have taken shape of being world's biggest market (Pushkar Camel Fare). Indians always associate multiple meaning to their transactions. An institution build on economic transactions has become part of larger social and cultural fabric of India.
There are 42000 rural super markets (haats) in India that exceed the total number of retail chain stores in the United States (35000). Many companies are following satellite distribution pattern through a hub and spoke model focusing on rural hats of India. Even syndicated distribution has become a possibility due to such an institutions. Other that product assortments there are newer things to study in these markets. Social marketing, word of mouth communication and different forms of personal communication for brand promotion is seen in these weekly markets.
Many companies are using rural haats for brand promotion as there will be a cluster of villages around which such haats are formed and people living in these villages have made it a habit to visit these weekly markets.
Let us share and learn from your experience of visiting weekly markets.
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Yeshasvini is a health insurance scheme launched in the year 2002 which the goal of providing health insurance coverage to the poor and the working class who didn’t have the capacity to pay for simple medical treatments. This scheme was the brain child of Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty the founder of Narayana Hrudayalaya. The entire scheme of conceptualized by Narayana Hrudalaya. After Intense research, their team found that the average occupancy rate of hospital beds was 35 % & most of the operation theatres across hospitals in Karnataka were underutilized. They also found rural patients don’t go to hospital for most of the common illness. The root cause for all these problems were identified as the lack of capacity among the poor who could not afford the medical treatment. The study concluded that by providing an insurance scheme with low premium and covering all the costs of hospitalization, surgery and other costs associated with it for the rural poor could solve the problem. Also Dr Shetty felt that by covering large number of people under this scheme he would be able to mitigate the basic financing problem which was a major challenge in similar schemes in the past.
ReplyDeleteBut there were other challenges that this insurance scheme had to overcome which otherwise could dent the entire aim of this scheme.
Scope of Coverage
For the insurance scheme to be successful the scheme had to find ways to gather all the dispersed farmers and informal workers and ensure everybody became a member of this scheme. This was achieved by a three step action plan.
• Communicate the scheme to the farmer
• Creating infrastructure to Issue of identity cards for the policy holders &
• Collect insurance premiums
Restricted benefits problem
Rupees 90 was charged as a premium per person per year. This was based on a research which concluded that rural poor could afford an annual premium ranging anywhere between 75-85 Rupees. Also the government for political reasons provided a subsidy to this scheme where the government accepted to pay one third of the premium amount for the enrolled members (Rs 30 per person would be paid by the government).
Creation of Health care infrastructure
For the successful implementation of the scheme both private as well a government hospitals were included in the network of hospitals that were covered under this scheme.
Initially 30-40 hospitals agreed to participate but after seeing the success of the scheme and due to the rising number of patients grew the number of hospitals that participated under the scheme increased. By 2004, 92 hospitals have joined in this scheme to provide medical care to members of Yeshasvini and by end of 2004, this number grew by 118
A trust was set up to administer the insurance scheme. The Yeshasvini trust has 11 board members from the medical community and the Department of Cooperation. Based on the mandate of Insurance Development Regulatory Authority (IRDA) the trust appointed a third party administrator Family Health Plan Limited (FHPL), which is a division of Apollo hospital.
The scheme has been successful in providing coverage for patients from the rural population who could not afford these lifesaving medical treatments. But a major drawback of the scheme is that it does not cover all health related issues, but like diagnostic tests, and medicines which is still heavy burden on poor rural families. Another major problem is most of the subscribers were forced to join the scheme. The health insurance scheme’s long term can only be successful only when the individuals freely chose to join than being forced to join the scheme. Also there is a lack of knowledge among the policy holders on what is exactly are covered by the policy. Unless the rural population is properly educated this would still be a problem and may threaten the success of such a scheme in long term.
Hariharn Ganeshan – FT12430
Raghavendra B – FT12243
Hello people
ReplyDeleteIn my visits to the rural village i found that in spite of the presence of packet chilli powder people prefer powdered chilli powder only. Pls note this is note the self powdered chilli powder but the chilli powder made by the retailer. He buys raw chillies frm wholesale.. powders it to the public and then sells it at a margin to the public..On further research i was also able to find out that the retailer earns more revenue than by sellin packet chilli powder..
Can the companies like aachi and sakthi masala tap this market.. My suggestion is settin up of rural grinding mills in association with SHG to get the powdered chilli powder to the public.. the chillies can be obtained by contract farming from the nearby areas so that the logistics costs involved be reduced drastically..
The cost i assume is not an issue here because my research on the weekly demand is good enough for breakeven for a machine in an year.. The risks associated has also been analysed and its found to be under 10% (Monte carlo)
But the issue is the success of contract farming.. Contract farming and its success in Rural India.. How much do you people think contract farming will be successful in Chilli market.. Aaachi masala for example has entered into contract farming for chillies in Tamilnadu.. will it be successful? any pinters?