He has authored the most definitive ‘Rural Marketing Book’ for students and practitioners alike. He is a regular guest speaker at the top B-schools in India.

In 1993 he started MART as a transparent, team based, non-hierarchical, flat organization based on ethical principles. MART has emerged as India’s leading rural consultancy organisation. He has been Marketing Advisor to Ministry of Rural Development and has served on Prime Minister Office and Chief Minister Committees on rural development. He was Chairman of KVIC marketing committee and a member of NABARD, SIDBI and CAPART national marketing committees. He is a World Bank and United Nations consultant.

He co-created Project Shakti with Hindustan Lever to appoint women micro entrepreneurs among SHGs as company dealers. 35,000 women in 12 states have benefited and each of them earns Rs 1,000 per month as profit from this business. He has pioneered another low cost, last mile rural distribution model using village volunteers on bicycles for Colgate, Godrej, Eveready, Heinz, Tata Tea and others.

He is a recipient of the Jamnalal Bajaj Endowment Award for his outstanding contribution. His marketing career spans 40 years. He is President, Rural Marketing Association of India.

Creating inclusive employability poses several challenges. First, there is no database available on the poor. Secondly, no institution/ mechanism like the employment exchanges really support employment of the unskilled poor. Employment exchanges focus on skilled employment not on unskilled and semi-skilled workforce. Thirdly, organised industries don’t want to recruit poor directly on their pay-roll due to issues of provident fund, gratuity, etc. and therefore, these industries source labour through the contractors. On the whole there is a complete bias against inclusive employability.

We need to understand what micro-entrepreneurship is. There are three levels of employment in the unorganised sector as per my understanding, which includes wage employment, self-employment and micro-entrepreneurs. The wage employment part is clear. However, there is confusion between self-employment and micro entrepreneurship. To my thinking a carpenter, plumber or weaver is self-employed whereas Dal Mill Chakki owner is a micro-entrepreneur as he provides employment to a couple of people.

95% of the employed people in the rural sector are in the informal sector and overwhelming majority are wage labourers. For example of the 260 million people engaged in agriculture 200 million are wage labourers.

Thus, majority of the work force in rural India are wage labourers, some self-employed and very few micro-entrepreneurs. In urban the situation is somewhat different as more people are micro-entrepreneurs since opportunity is available in automobile shops, dhabas, photocopying shops, etc. where some people are employed by the owner/ entrepreneur.
In rural sector, micro-enterprise is not the way forward to measure inclusive employability. It is really wage employment where one can achieve inclusive employability rather than focusing on micro-enterprises.

There are traditional sectors, new emerging sectors and the corporate sector creating employment in rural areas. Traditional sector includes handlooms, handicrafts, beedi rolling, carpet weaving, etc., generally the non-farm sector. For this we need to strengthen marketing under government promotional agencies such as khadi bhawans, cottage industry emporiums, Bunkar society showrooms etc. Agriculture employs 260 million (60%) of India’s workforce but contributes only 16% to the GDP, on the other hand service sector employs 30 million (6%) workforce but contributes 60% of the GDP. Therefore, per capita income in agriculture is the lowest. As per a World Bank and Planning Commission study, 100 million people from the agriculture sector will have to move out. So we need to create employment for 200 million people in the next 10 years (100 million additional workforces from agriculture and 100 million who will enter the job market for the first time). The emerging sectors are construction, health, education, retail and rural tourism. We need to skill people for these sectors. India has the least skill trained manpower at 5% as compared to 80% skilled manpower in South Korea and 65% in the USA. We need to have vocational skill training for the students immediately after they complete schooling to decongest our colleges. In Germany and USA less than 10% of school graduates enrol for college education.

You have been consultant to large corporates for increasing their market outreach in rural areas. In your opinion, how the issue of skills development can be addressed by the corporates emphasising in the rural areas.

Corporate sector is now moving very quickly in the rural market for setting-up of their retail outlets, distribution channels, private schools and hospitals. These need skilled workforce but trained manpower is not available in rural areas. And yet it is important to recruit local manpower as they understand rural consumers, their mindset and local culture. Wages would also be much lower and workers will stay for a long time. Some organised rural retail chains have brought people from urban areas but retention rate is very low due to lack of good schools or medical facilities for the employees and families.

The corporate sector should address the above issues by investing in training institutions, both private government ITIs. If they want trained manpower they must invest in partnering with training institutions and develop vocational training programmes as per their customised needs

Rojgaar.in is a very relevant portal because it is addressing the most difficult segment, the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) largely the unskilled and semi-skilled workforce for creating inclusive employability. When corporates and others want to recruit people or create employment in the rural areas, rojgaar.in can become a labour consultant on behalf of the corporates and other institutions to identify, shortlist and source manpower for the corporates and can provide end-to-end solutions to meet their hiring requirements.