consumer awareness in rural india

Introduction
The welfare of the consumers lays in the fulfillment of their normal and legitimate expectation with regards to the goods they purchases and the services they avail. In a country like India where all the consumer protection laws are in place, the consumers are not really aware of them and the mechanism in place to redress their grievances. Those who know the laws know that the process is very slow and cumbersome. There are a number of steps taken to protect the rural consumer but without much impact due to the prevailing socio - economic conditions of the rural consumers. They generally base their purchasing decisions on the advertisement campaigns and promotional strategies employed by the organizations and also lack choice.
The rural markets, which were earlier ignored by most of the big international market players, are now being seen as a land of great business opportunity. As the disposable income of the masses is growing, more and more corporate houses are entering into the rural markets with their new goods and products. Due to this marketing for rural consumers is becoming more complex. In a country like India, where a substantial number of the rural people are living below the poverty line, having high level of unemployment and poor literacy level; consumer awareness continues to remain low. Several studies have shown that rural consumers are generally ignorant and also unorganized. Under these circumstances, the sellers or the manufacturers, exploit the consumers.
Though, the consumers in India have been provided with various safety measures against their exploitation, still the sellers and producers are hoarding and black- marketing the essential goods, resorting economic corruption and frequently cheating the consumers. Rural markets are full of sub-standard goods and duplicity of branded goods is another major problem in rural areas. As there is no check on production and sale of such products in the rural markets, many of these