NEED FOR NEW THINKING ON RURAL AREA

Today,a large no of voluntary organization are involved in developing technologies for rural areas.Hardly some of people aware the new technologies. Many of peoples not aware of new technology in rural areas.and in some of rural areas developed IT Chaupaal this is a new modernization for rural sector. Rural market potential shows that a population of about 250 million in rural areas exhibits a high level of market potential.This is almost 25% to 30% total population of India. With such a high market potential, good efforts of organizations developing technologies, devices and products for rural areas.

Present situation

1.) Almost 70% to 80% the technologies being propagated in rural areas are urban-based and biased. They trickle down to rural areas.

2.) Rural population is not composed of subhuman beings.Their needs and aspirations are similar to those living in urban areas. Technology development should take place keeping these aspirations in view.

3.) Today most of the technology development that takes place for rural areas is carried out with an aim to keep it simple so that the devices can be made in rural areas itself. This is a peculiar mindset of technology developers.

4.) Poorer sections of rural population, it is asking too much to have them make their own chulhas,bullock carts and their own fram not much knowledge any other. At least nobody in urban areas asks consumers to make their own scooters or cooking stoves.

5.) In rural area children are eager to learn new things but lack of knowledge in english and not aware of new technology.

Possible Solutions

1.) Supermarkets in one shot have changed the perception of rural people and have created demand for better quality goods. The local bania shop could have been enough to take care of the needs but these supermarkets have created demand. In doing so they have helped in upgrading the life style of a certain section of rural population.

2.) Once the industry linkage is established, then automatically the whole machinery of consumer demand creation comes into play. This includes high volume production, good quality products, media advertising, sales outlets and after sales service. No technology has successfully reached the masses without the above attributes and rural technology should follow the same evolutionary process.

3.) Rural technology development and propagation should be a consortium project (An association of companies for some definite purpose). The members of such consortia will include industry, grass root NGOs, researchers and workers. With industry in the picture right from the beginning, there is a scope for ensuring better sales efforts.

4.) The spread of rural technologies will be facilitated if they also are employment generators.

5.) High-tech agrobased industries can provide a possible solution. These industries will be in the areas of food processing, energy production (electricity producing plants running on biomass and ethanol production) and production of raw materials for chemical industries.

6.) Shown that in rural areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra all round development takes place right from agriculture development to consumer items growth to increased employment around them.

China commodity prices crashing and effect on global market!

China has done it again! There are many uncertanity in the global market. In the world market commodity prices are different for all the country. The numbers coming out of its economy look out of sync with reality on yet another occasion. Consider the shipping data for instance. There has been a marked increase in the number of ships sailing around China these days. And this has made the country's shipping indices go berserk. Freight costs in China have jumped nearly 20% in the last month and a half alone. And the trend is showing no signs of reversing. Infact, the freight index jumped another 4% last week.

However, there is an even more surprising element to this development. The jump in freight indices is almost entirely a Chinese only phenomenon. Shipping indices in the rest of the world have barely budged. In fact, the Baltic dry index, an indicator of worldwide shipping activity, fell sharply in January and was nearly flat all of February.Thus, the big trend of 2009 where the dragon nation was stockpiling commodities in hope that their prices would increase, seems to be unwinding in a big way. Commodity prices could come crashing down as a still weak global demand would fail to cope up with increased supply coming out of China.