Hariyali Kisan Bazaars: DSCL

Hariyali Kisan Bazaars are helping transform rural India by providing all manner of services to farmers.

While the retail revolution in urban areas is going ahead at its own pace, the retailing in rural areas is also getting modernised in a unique manner to cater exclusively to the wide-ranging needs of customer-farmers. The trend setter in this case has been the “Hariyali Kisan Bazaar” chain launched by the DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd (DSCL) in 2002-03 with a well-conceived model of value-added retailing.

Beginning with just five outlets, the Hariyali chain has already grown into 127 centres spread across seven states. Interestingly, the turnover of this chain has clocked a massive 75 per cent growth in last one year due to higher sales and rapid expansion of the network. The footfalls in each of these outlets averaged around 150 to 200 per day, rising to even 1,000 a day during key phases of the cropping cycles.

The spectacular success of the DSCL initiative has, significantly enough, attracted the attention of the Harvard Business School which took it up as a case study and discussed it in the prestigious international agri-business seminar held last month in Boston.

Indeed, what sets the Hariyali enterprise apart from normal retailing is that it goes beyond just the sale of farm inputs or household necessities to provide farmer-clients technical guidance and other support services to improve farm productivity and net returns. All the salesmen in these bazaars, notably, are agricultural graduates and trained agronomists. Besides offering guidance on cropping patterns and technology issues, they also hold training courses at various Hariyali centres and even visit the farmers’ fields to offer on-the-spot problem-solving counsel.

Besides, Hariyali outlets are information technology-enabled and have running strips displaying current as well as futures prices of agricultural commodities. The farmers are advised on post-harvest operations like grading of farm produced to fetch higher prices in the market. Many outlets have petrol and diesel dispensing stations attached to them. The bottomline is that these centres seek to meet most, even if not all, the needs of the farmers under one roof.

The men behind this rural retail movement, Ajay S Shriram and Vikaram S Shriram, DSCL’s chairman and vice-chairman, respectively, attribute its success to winning the trust of the farmers through the supply of genuine products and fair and transparent business. They have, indeed, chosen to adhere to the best practices for retailing as are followed by organised urban retail ventures. As such, these outlets deal mostly in branded products of reputed companies, offering the customers wide range to choose from. “The farmers want good quality products and they are willing to pay for them,” they maintain.

DSCL plans to expand its outlets to have an all-India presence in about two years. “We want to open Hariyali centres in all agriculturally important areas,” say the Shriram brothers. The products on offer, apart from all farm inputs, range from consumer durables like television sets, dish TVs, mobile phones and washing machines to factory-packed grocery, luggage items, cosmetics and toys.

DSCL has already tied up with ICICI Bank for providing banking services at the Hariyali outlets. Talks are in progress to have similar arrangements with a few other banks, including HDFC Bank. For providing insurance cover, the company has tied up with ICICI Prudential and some others.

The scope of the Hariyali model is now proposed to be enlarged to provide warehousing facilities to enable farmers to defer the sale of their produce to get better returns. Five warehouses with an area of around one lakh square feet are currently under construction in various northern states. These are likely to become operational in the next couple of months. The receipts of these warehouses for stored products will allow farmers to get bank loans against them.

Not only that, a medical centre is being set up at one of the Hariyali outlets in Punjab with facilities for tele-medical services. Fortis Hospital is collaborating in this venture. Besides, DSCL is in touch with NIIT to offer computer training facilities at Haryiali bazaars.

Indeed, the Hariyali bazaar initiative has shown how well thought out initiatives in rural retailing can help transform Indian agriculture and improve the economic conditions and living standards of village dwellers, even while being a commercially sustainable business. As such, there can be little doubt that rural retailing on modern lines is here to stay.