Rural Hypermarts - ITC’s 'Choupal Saagar'

In the previous blog I had touched upon most of the options that would be available for retailing in villages, but I did leave out a new format being tried out by ITC. ITC is coming up with rural hypermarts, called 'Choupal Saagar'. The Choupla saagrs are aimed to become a multiple service provider for the villager, a single point where he can sell his produce and purchase consumables, insurance, farm inputs, and so on.

The first of these Malls has come up in Sehore MP. The number has gone up to 10 with another 9 in the pipe line according to http://www.itcportal.com. The estimated cost of setting up each choupal is around 5 crores with each mall spread across 5 acres. And the company has plans to open 700 such hypermarts across the country in the next ten years. The plan is to create a linkage between the echoupal and choupal saagar , and the same catchment of farmers who are engaged with the company for the sale of their products should also become the first customers of the choupal sagaar.

The obvious reality is that these malls have come up in the more prosperous areas of the rural country side, not in the far flung and isolated areas of the country. It is an experiment which many companies are watching with great interest and infact many of them have tied up with ITC to provide their services to farmers who shop at the hypermart.

It is said that the point where the farmer collects his money for the sale of his produce is located at the back of the hypermart. Designed such that the farmer has to walk through the mall, and thus break any hesitation that he might have and also see the products up for sale and perhaps on his way back also make some purchases.