The population of rural India is about 12% of the world population, which makes it bigger than the size

of Europe. Mahatma Gandhi often said that India lives in her villages. Two out of three Indians still live here. When Gandhiji made the remark, rural India was very different from what it is today. We have seen a major transformation in the last 60 years. The Green Revolution propelled the food grains production from a mere 50 million tonnes to 245 million tonnes in 201011. GDP per agricultural worker is 75% higher in real terms. Today, as much as 40% of India's total consumption is accounted for by rural India. By 2025, the Indian rural market is expected to grow more than ten fold to become a USD100 billion opportunity for retail spending. The key drivers are India's accelerated consumption-led growth, significant improvement in infrastructure & communication, and increased government spending on programmes for rural development. Rural incomes, which were dependent mostly on farm income, are now boosted by trading, agro-processing and ancillary industries. Rising procurement prices and increasing access to finance have also boosted rural incomes. Improvement in physical infrastructure and the transformed communication network has significantly increased access to urban India. This is creating new industry in rural India, better employment opportunities and higher wages. It is also unleashing a much higher level of aspiration among the 800 million people living

in rural India
About 68% of Indias population lives in rural areas. Rural population has grown by 12% in last decade. Rural market has distinguished characteristics, accounts for 40% of Indian economy. Rural India has huge, heterogeneous and growing consumer market, which contributes more than 50% to Indias total consumer market size.

the data that is available on the potential of rural markets according to National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER)

Rural India accounts for 70% of Indias population, 56% of national income, 64% of total expenditure and one-third of the total savings In real terms (at 1999 prices), the size of the rural economy will be about Rs16 trillion in 2012-13 as compared to Rs12 trillion in 2007-08 90% of the rural population is concentrated in villages with a population of less than 2,000 The share of low- income households (Rs45,000 average household income at 2004-05 prices) in rural India will decline from 58% in 1995 to 27% at present to 14% further in 2012 On the other hand, the middle-high income households (Rs2.25 lakh average household income at 2004-05 prices) will constitute about half of the rural households. These constituted 13% of total households in 1995-96. Rural consumers accounted for around 60% of the total ownership of lowcost items such as bicycles, pressure cookers and wristwatches in 1995-96. The share is expected to rise to three-fourths in 2009-10. In the case of consumer durables, the rural share in (the) FMCG segment is quite high (53%) and is likely to increase to 60% by the end of the decade