Spoilt for choice

Life has changed in fundamental ways for the Indian consumer.

When the Delhi Development Authority built middle class housing in parts of the capital in the late eighties and early nineties, it provided refrigerator connections in the dining-living room area and garage space only for two-wheelers.

Owning a fridge in those days was so rare as to be a status symbol worthy of being flaunted for visitors. Only about two Indian companies manufactured them. As for cars, with just three car manufacturers, the choice was limited and the waiting list ran into years. The chances of the average middle class household owning a car were so remote that DDA did not think fit to provide garage space for them.

Today, anyone buying a house will look for the fridge-fitting in the kitchen; it’s no longer a luxury but a necessity. And she will have a wide variety of models and manufacturers to choose from, in a market that now sells 6.6 million units a year, according to industry sources — from Korean chaebol like LG and Samsung to Old Faithfuls Godrej and Videocon. Ditto for air-conditioners, washing machines, microwave ovens, the other accoutrements of today’s middle class living that were all but absent 20 years ago. Indeed, the TV, another item of prideful ownership back then, has become such a common appliance these days that multiple ownership has become a norm.

Life has changed for the Indian consumer in fundamental ways — that too, in less than a generation. From owning a house to visiting a mall, a swanky hospital or a tony restaurant, there’s been a tectonic shift from life as Indians knew it between 1947 and 1991.

In consumer durables, if two things symbolised the rise of middle class wealth, it is automobiles and mobile telephony. From less than 10 car models sold by three companies, the two million car market now has over 20 companies selling over 100 models. No surprise, India is now the world’s fastest-growing market after China.

As for mobile telephony, the transition from a penetration of less than 1 per cent in the 1990s to 50 per cent (with a subscriber base of 680 million) today is a story of how economic liberalisation has met pent-up demand.

In services, the average Indian middle class consumer has seen a revolution of sorts. Banking services are rapidly becoming so computerised that passbooks are becoming a thing of the past; most utility bills can be paid online and virtual shopping is becoming increasingly popular. In air travel, following the end of the government’s monopoly, there are five domestic airlines and many more overseas airlines competing for an annual market of 106 million domestic passengers, up from a mere 19 million in 2001.

The one aspect of life that remains almost unchanged for the Indian consumer is in state-facing services. Try lining up for water and power connections, applying for a driving licence or registering property and memories of the pre-licence raj will come back to haunt you. India, thus, still operates at two speeds.