Even when 30-year-old Bhikha, a farmer in Koka, a small village in Haryana, is tilling his land, he is able to track live mandi prices on his mobile phone. So, now when he takes his produce to the mandi, he is able to negotiate better prices.

For 50-something Daulat Prakash, who runs a small kirana shop on the outskirts of the village, having a mobile phone means he can order distributors immediately for the goods he needs. Unlike a few years back when the supply lag was of two weeks, now the goods are supplied within a few days. Of course, better road connectivity has helped too.

In interior Haryana, in Aeri village, Bano (25) no longer takes a siesta, but spends her afternoons watching her favourite soap, Choti Bahu, on the television set her husband purchased last year. On weekends, she heads to the village market to buy clothes and accessories that make her look somewhat similar to the female protagonists on TV.

Welcome to rural India, where permeation of technology and communication has revolutionised lives, just like elsewhere.

A decade back, not many recognised the rural consumer, and even fewer thought of him as an avid mobile user or a voracious TV watcher. But in the heartlands of India, today mobile phone and direct-to-home (DTH) is a reality.

In fact, for an average rural family, the first big domestic purchase is still a television set. Even a refrigerator is bought later.

While a city dweller today mostly spends his time watching news or sports on television, for his counterpart in a village it?s pure entertainment?soaps and movies top the list. ?Choti Bahu, Geet are our favourite serials, though we watch most of the TV serials on Star Plus and Zee. My husband watches Hamar Haryana, which airs local news. Power cuts are frequent, so we got an inverter for uninterrupted viewing,? says Poonam Devi, a mother of three, residing in Koka village of Jhajjar district. The myriad advertisements on TV have in the past year ensured that her shopping list includes Maggie and Horlicks for her children and sanitary napkins for herself.

?I want my son to become a TV reporter so that our voices can be heard,? says Poonam?s husband. Till a few years back, not many knew of TV journalism as a career option. Similarly, there are many who now aspire to be the next Indian Idol or a Roadie.

Of the total TV-owning rural households, 49 million households have cable and satellite and a staggering 14 million have digital connections. Number of digital or direct-to-home (DTH) connections in urban India are pegged at six million. It?s these numbers which are driving marketers and DTH players to rural India. ?The acquisition cost for us is lower in rural India. So overall the bottomline is better in rural as compared to urban market. Also despite a steady growth, rural areas are still under-served, therefore, the potential is huge,? says Salil Kapoor, COO, Dish TV.

Of the total mobile subscribers, around 33% reside in villages. While there were 62 million rural mobile subscribers in 2008, the figure has crossed 190 million in 2010! Though in heartlands mobile phone is more of a work tool and less for social networking, the change that it can drive can be gauged from the fact that income of fishermen in coastal villages of Kerala almost tripled after the telecom boom in 2000. The fishermen eliminated the middlemen by negotiating with wholesale agents even before reaching the coasts.

What started as a revolution has still not lost fizz. Mobile phones with Hindi keypads have found popularity among villagers, so have services such as Saral Mobile Sandesh (SMS) by Nokia that allows one to send messages in Hindi. Companies continue to woo the great Indian villager. Vodafone, for instance, is set to launch solar-powered phones for rural consumers. ?Lower tariffs and cheaper handsets have helped increase subscriber base in rural areas,? says Jaideep Ghosh, director, KPMG Advisory Services.

For an average urbanite, surfing the net is about emailing, Facebook or blogging, but for rural India it has transformed lives. ITC?s e-choupal, which covers 40,000 villages, is a strong example of how Internet can be used to empower peasants and give them information that increases productivity. E-choupals provide farmers with farming knowhow and services, timely and relevant weather information and access to wider markets. Being linked to futures markets via Internet helps farmers to better manage risk.