Mobile Van

Background
In today’s day and age, the concepts of marketing of goods and services are undergoing a
fundamental shift in understanding. Rather than attempting to overlap the concepts and
tools of marketing of goods to marketing of services, companies are now trying to market
both of these, on the premise of perceived value of the product sold to consumers.
Essentially, this means that consumers do not buy the product or service…instead they pay
for the value they perceive they will get out of the product.

Thanks to this trend, we now have strong evidence that suggests that services can be sold
for a fee, as long as the potential customer base sees value in the product, which is more
that the price he paid for the product. In case of innovative services, this job becomes
more complicated as it gets more difficult to make the users realise the value of the
offering. Furthermore, when one is dealing with the rural sector of India…this job can be
quite a challenge as there a number of issues of cultural change, that need to be
addressed. Keeping these perspectives in mind…we have prepared a report on the potential
advantages of “Sahaayak Mobile Vans”. We present a brief synopsis of the services offered
by such a service.

Proposal
This would be a van moving between villages within a fixed area that it would cover. The
area would span a range of around 75 kms around a fixed location, which would most likely
be a city. The van would provide a host of services to the members of villages in rural India
who would have to come to the city to avail of such services. The primary services offered
would be:

a. Proliferation of Unique Identification Cards

This van can be used as a Special Purpose Vehicle to ensure penetration of the UID
program that would lead to accurate counts of people for the purpose of
governmental benefits, data gathering, issuance of ration / voter cards, opening
bank accounts, etc

b. Creation of new bank accounts

The promoters of this service could tie up with governmental banks and promote
opening of new accounts for the inhabitants of the villagers. This would allow them
to keep deposit their savings, which return them some interest as well as assured
safety.

c. Basic Legal Counselling

Trained personnel could dispense advice on basic legal rights of the villagers in the
context of the problems they face. This would go a long way in assuring the
populace of the degree of legal rights that they can enjoy and execute in a given
situation.

d. Dispense Medical Aid with the help of on-board doctors

The van would carry a doctor and perhaps a nurse who would provide basic medical
care and first level healthcare services in situations of trauma.

e. Provide data related to land records on request from internet based land registries
Mouza / Plot No details of land are usually prerequisites required during sale and
purchase of real estate in villages. However, obtaining original or duplicate copies
of the same from the Land Registry Office [usually located at district level
government offices] is a time and resource consuming activity. Some states have
already implemented a system of making this information available online. The van
would be equipped with the required application software to locate and print the
necessary documents on request.
 f. Facilitate efficient buying, selling and renting of equipment and produce
Personnel on board the van could facilitate exchange of information regarding
availability of mechanical equipment for purchase or rent, potential buyers of
produce, requirements for labour that need to be satisfied, so on and so forth. This
would be done on an intra and inter-village basis.

g. Information Sharing
The farmers could be updated on the latest farming best practices, availability of
better quality seeds and fertilisers and maybe even newer machines on the market
that would reduce the time or effort involved in agricultural activities. In line with
the theory of “Being forewarned is being forearmed”, latest governmental
initiatives and policies would also be shared to educate them on new schemes that
have been launched and the various benefits and challenges that they have to face
in the near future.

h. Social Upliftment
i. One person from an interested NGO can also be carried in the van. This would allow
the NGO to go from village to village and tend to people with problems as and
where required. In this way they could also call attention to various issues that they
find.

j. Enable the village members to reap the benefits of medical and life insurance by
first educating them about this and then perhaps facilitating them signup for the
same and collection of premiums as well

k. Bill Payment facilities

Additional services under consideration:

l. Providing Education
m. Blood Donation [knowledge sharing]

Conclusion
Providing distribution of products and services across the rural hinterland [638,000 villages
– 85% having a population of less than 2000] is a big opportunity, but one that is highly
challenging due to low economies of scale. One of the contributing factors is also large
distances between villages and distributors. This means that the standard model of
providing goods and services though individual front end sales systems becomes very
prohibitive. One of the ways to get around this issue is to have organizations join hands and
market services across a common platform.

Our proposed “Sahaayak Mobile Vans” will follow this model to provide a variety of goods
and services in an economically viable manner.