At a time when companies are downsizing and management students of finance are struggling with placements, their counterparts in rural management are finding themselves in great demand. At the recently-concluded placements of Xavier Institute of Management in Bhubaneshwar, not only did all the 59 students of post-graduate diploma in rural management find jobs in various organisations like Monsanto, Tata Teleservices, Shriram Group, Mother Dairy and Amul, some even bagged multiple offers. The average salary has also gone up from Rs 4.2 lakh to Rs 4.46 lakh per annum and the highest salary offered was Rs 8 lakh per annum, much to the envy of finance students who till last year could easily command Rs 10 lakh per annum to start with. Similarly, all the students of KIIT School of Rural Management bagged offer letters with a 10-15% increase in salary levels.
Rural India has 800 million consumers far removed from the credit crunch, rise in farm income because of good crop production, significant increase in minimum support prices of food grains, agricultural loan waiver, employment guarantees, and large investments in rural infrastructure?all indicating promise of new markets. Companies in the fast moving consumer goods segment, durables and two-wheelers are charting aggressive rural expansion plans, buoyed by growing sales in rural areas that are contributing to their topline. In fact, an analysis of the past five years of rural consumption patterns shows there is strong growth potential in FMCG, durables, health, education, and transport services. As rural markets mature, banking, finance and insurance products will be the new growth sector. Moreover, the increase in reverse migration is also creating new rural consumers.
The problem, so far, with rural management programmes was that most institutes offered the course in addition to an existing mainstream programme and was treated as poor cousins of the main programmes. It was difficult to filter out students genuinely interested in taking up rural management as a career. That should change now as rural India shows new growth opportunities.
?saikat.neogi@expressindia.com