The Hindu Business Line : Centre plans consultant for marketing rural products

Going global
Centre is planning to appoint a full-time consultant for marketing of rural artefacts.
The Ministry plans to appoint the consultant on a one-year contract.

New Delhi May 11 The Centre is planning to appoint a full-time consultant for marketing of rural artefacts and non-farm products in the international and domestic markets.

The Ministry of Rural Development has invited applications for the post of a consultant, who would be expected to facilitate the visibility of rural products in the overseas and domestic market, and also find alternative channels through partnership arrangements with India Inc.

Companies such as ITC Ltd — which has placed orders with a Kerala-based rural trust `Uravu' for developing bamboo-based incense stick holders specifically for the overseas market — are already partnering rural players. The Centre hopes to replicate this model by getting other high-profile companies into the rural products' value chain.

Rural products

"Even as players across the globe are eyeing the Indian market in a big way, there is no market for rural products within the country, let alone abroad. If Chinese-made Ganesha idols have flooded the Indian markets because of their good marketing strategy, we can definitely work towards pitching home-grown rural products abroad," a Government official involved in the exercise said. The consultant would be expected to provide a thrust to this initiative, he added.

The mandate for the consultant includes identifying market-oriented economic opportunities in the rural areas, besides overseeing the creation, operation and maintenance of marketing infrastructure including haats, complexes and malls, besides tying up warehousing facilities for the benefit of the rural poor.

Also, the creation of a nation-wide rural marketing facilitation network on a partnership model and coordination with different players in government, non-government and private sector is being envisaged. The consultant would be required to facilitate more public-private partnerships, on the lines of the ITC model, the official said.

The Ministry plans to appoint the consultant on a one-year contract, which is likely to be extended. Applications are invited up to May 15.

The appointment of the consultant comes in the wake of efforts being made by the Centre to develop rural business hubs (RBHs) as a public-private-panchayat partnership to improve the locally available resources and skills to produce goods that could be marketed nationally and internationally. The project seeks to bring village blocks into the commercial mainstream through product and process development, and to develop synergies with other rural schemes currently operational

"RBHs would ensure easy access to market through branding, provide value addition products through technology inputs from experts and increase productivity by adding effective quality and cost management to merge with the Centrally-sponsored schemes," the official said.

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