Introduction The Indian Retail Industry is the largest among all the industries accounting for over 10 percent of country’s GDP and around 8% of employment. Even when retail industry is booming and in retail outlets we do get some agricultural commodities, still in our country the agricultural commodities cannot produce maximum agricultural return. The farmers still have to depend upon monsoon and large majority of the farms are still rain fed. The poor maintenance of agricultural commodities in the post-harvest period is a major issue. There is lack of proper warehousing technology in the villages, lack of proper knowledge and technical knowhow etc. Due to this prevalent situation productivity from agriculture declines and our country stands nowhere compared to other countries of the world as regard to agricultural production . Information Technology can be used to improve the situation to some extent. The proposed model is as follows: Assumptions: 1.The retail market is perfectly competitive in nature. 2.There is no major natural disaster or calamities, but only those as is normally associated with changes in weather conditions. 3.Normal economic laws govern the market forces. Key Components 1.VILLAGE CENTRE: A Village Centre (VC) is the body which serves both as an information kiosk, a community centre and a commodity exchange place. A VC may be formed for 10 or more villages taken together. 2.VILLAGE CENTRE HEAD-QUARTERS: (VCHQ) are situated in the district head quarter towns and connected with all VC s and the City Centers through internet. 3.CITY CENTRE- situated in major cities of the state where Retail Outlets operate. 4.RETAIL OUTLETS: They are departmental stores or the like that deal in retail sale of agricultural products and/or by-products. 5.WHOLESALERS: They have the same meaning as understood in common parlance. 6.FARMERS: A farmer may be small, medium or large based on the quantum of harvest, and may be a producer of both food and cash crops. The Model: For the purpose of illustration, the system of functioning and the hierarchy is given as under. The various cities have city centers which is under Ministry of Agriculture. A number of Village Center Headquarters are under the City Center. The village centers are under the Village Center Headquarters. The village center in turn can manage two or three villages. The Village Centre has direct link with farmers who can approach the Village Centre for the following: â€Weather report and forecasts â€Mean wholesale price prevailing in the market â€Guidance and counseling regarding what to produce, how to produce and how much to produce. â€Technical Know-how â€Information and practicalities of Irrigational facilities â€Gramin Swarojgar Yojna and other Government incentives directly related to farmers â€Teleconferencing, with experts and guests directly from VCHQs, arranged for attending queries of farmers on one-to-one basis. â€Social networking, entertainment and recreational facilities. The Village Centre may arrange for weekly educational curriculum along with recreational arrangements, example: Film shows, skits, puppet shows etc. They are responsible for catering information to farmers pertinent to their requirements as already specified above and this they do with local dialects. The Village Centre also keeps track of â€Total number of farmers registered for production in the region â€Total quantum of production in the domain â€Types of crops produced â€Wholesale Demand in the area of various produces. The Village Centre Head Quarter The VCHQ is the nerve centre of the Village Centre. Basic information and analysis of data, arrangement of Teleconferencing facilities, analysis of prices, Weather reports forecasts, computation of the price-caps and placing orders etc are all supplied to the Village Centers in its domain by the VCHQs. THE CITYCENTRE City centre serves three purposes. 1.Analysis of Market Sensitive data 2.Coordination with and control of VCHQs 3.Coordination with structured retail outlets Functioning Retail outlets are compulsorily registered with the city centre. They can access information regarding prices of various agricultural products, rating amongst various retails outlets etc and can directly place orders through online portal for free. In return they provide information like market survey data, customer preferences, quarterly demand of materials or products etc., which they gather by applying their market survey techniques. The order so placed shall be forwarded to the relevant VCHQ and they shall accordingly place the order to a VC under their domain with necessary price specifications, and accordingly relevant VCs shall place orders to the farmers directly. The bidding shall be open for a specified time and wholesalers and Retail outlets shall place bids for the trade. Farmers are free to choose to sell to i)wholesaler ii)Retail outlets, through Village Centre Trading Terminals The determination of price for such sale is the key factor to the choice. The VCHQ shall compute and set a ceiling price using statistical tools like the moving average method taking into account the whole-sale price for a particular product for the five years immediately preceding the current year. A floor price shall also be set so that the unorganized retail market be not hampered There shall be free and competitive bidding from both ends until the farmer chooses the best deal. A common notion would be that the retail outlets in the city being backed by powerful corporate-money will always stay ahead in bidding and the wholesalers won’t stand a chance, because the farmers will always prefer a higher bid. This can be curbed by imposing an ad-valorem duty on each sale through the portal. Illustration Demand-300 kg of Tomatoes Ceiling price- Rs 30 per kg Floor Price: Rs.25 per Kg Whole saler’s final bid : Rs 25 per kg Whole seller’s estimated profit margin: Rs. 4 per Kg Retail l outlet’s final bid: Rs 28/kg Farmer’s choice: WholesalerRetail Outlet 300 kg X 25 =Rs 7800 /- ------------------ 7500300 kg X 28=8400 Less duty @10% =840 --------------------- 7560 Thus farmer is ensured the price for his produce. The transit cost should be borne by user. Payment Mechanism Online payment through debit cards, credit cards, smart cards etc. Upon confirmation of payment, bank account of the farmer is credited. Only upon confirmation of receipt, goods shall start moving. Revenue and Funding There shall be a nominal registration fee chargeable from the farmers, wholesalers, and retailers. The ad valorem duty on sale of goods through the online portal from Retail outlets shall also add to the revenue. Private funding is a necessity and shall be encouraged. Conventional sponsorship or advertisement may also be adopted. Technological Requirement The technology requirement of the proposed model is as follows: In Village Centre it can be the battery powered PC with Internet facilities with a projector. Optical storage device and hard disk drive and teleconferencing facilities, full motion video and integrated stereo speakers (or optional headphones) provide a multi-media platform that allows these workstations to do double duty as Web- or computer-based training. The operating system used by them may be the any operating system which is cheap and readily available. They acts as a client and put queries to the Village Centre Headquarter Server which may in turn put special queries to the city centre. In Village Centre Headquarters workstation with efficient data storage mechanism for storage and efficient retrieval of data with internet facilities, the machines are loaded with Relational Database Management system which helps them in handling query efficiently. The city centers’ workstation is equipped with CASE tools for data analysis and preparation of reports and charts and Internet facilities along with storage mechanism, like Village centre headquarters systems, they are also capable of handling query efficiently because the various Village Center Headquarter will query the city centre for important information. A wireless LAN can be set up with a bandwidth of not more than 2 bps of data in different city centers and the radio modem of the wireless LAN may be situated in a city centre which is at the heart of the state. Human Resource Development Extensive training on the applications and administration of the network shall be provided to the village centre users on site. The operating level staff at the both the village centre and village centre headquarter have been given sufficient training on site This project will prove beneficial in generating employment opportunities for the local population. Each village centre needs at least two operators. The village centre headquarters employs qualified computer expert like database administrator along with data entry operators to manage web and e-mail administration. The city centre also requires network administrator along with database administrator and also qualified computer personnel with decision making capabilities along with data entry operator. Economic Impact The various advantages of this kind of establishment may be given as under: A.From the point of view of the Farmer: 1.Assurance of market for the end product 2.Technical and other assistance 3.Substantial reduction of uncertainty and risk related to production and sale. 4.Information and updation-encouraging strategic planning for the next production period 5.Chance to avail best deals in the product. B.From the Point of view of the Retail Outlet: a.Direct access to the producers b.Dispensing off with the wholesalers’ margin of profit that otherwise would have been payable c.Easy and efficient inventory management d.Determination of Economic Order Quantity through competitive bid. e.Online transaction- reduction of paper work, cost effective and time friendly C.From the Point of view of the Government: Every farmer being registered at the Village centre, and retail Outlets being registered at the various City centre trading outlets; and market responses, behavior of economic agent s involved, Production statistics, supply chain events, etc being properly recorded and analyzed such transparency shall be extremely useful for the Government in determining fiscal policies and to record growth of the agrarian sector. The setting up of the facility shall ensure employment and thereby increasing the contribution of the sector to the GDP. Conclusion The proposed model aims at organizing and centralizing the retail market for agrarian product, a huge investment so the Government should play a vital role in implementation of the above mentioned model. The Government can think of also outsourcing the development and maintenance of city centre to other companies.The training of the personnel can also be outsourced to an IT company.
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