Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad (MICA), the premiere communications institute of India, has developed a rural market index for the country. This exercise was conducted with a view to provide an easy means of comparing rural areas of the country for the purpose of marketing products. The MICA Market Ratings will enable marketeer to sit at their desk and look at the profiles of the districts of their choice. As all the information has been sorted and organised by the MICA research team, there will be no need to go searching for these data from several different sources.

For the first time in India, an electronic mapping system is accompanying a package of this kind. The project has been undertaken by ML Infomap Pvt. Ltd. and supported by Tata Infotech Ltd. The end product, that will be marketed and distributed by MICA and ML Infomap, has been developed as a standalone system, using Maplnfo Software Development Kit and is being distributed on MAPX. The user can access a broad range of digital mapping functions like enlarging, reducing, visualising different sets of physical features and thematic layers. Several major business houses have already evinced interest in using MICA Market Ratings for strategic planning of their rural marketing functions.