NEW DELHI In many small towns and hamlets in India, mobile phone users are thicker in rural areas in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharastra and Haryana than in bustling metropolitan cities like Mumbai and even Delhi, IRNA reported.

According to the *** Economic Times, *** an English daily from New Delhi, the rural areas of Kunnamkulam or Kondotti or Aluva in interior Kerala of southern Indian state, are places where mobile phone penetration is higher than metros by factor of three to five, where penetration levels-defined as the number of users as a percentage of population.

Delhi, which is the capital of India, is the biggest mobile phone market with nearly six hundred thousand users and a penetration rate of about 4 percent. That doesn't faze the folks down in Kunnamkulam, Kerala, and 15 percent of whom are busy yakking into their handsets.

More than a dozen places in this southern state have penetration rates that are higher than Delhi's. Many top Mumbai's 2.9 percent penetration figure. And Kerala isn't really unique in this respect: Small towns in Maharastra, Tamil Nadu and even Haryana have number that are the stuff marketers dreams are made of.

S. Nagarajan, general manager, marketing of the Birla-Tata- Batata consortium which runs operations in Maharastra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, says pushing mobile phone coverage in smaller towns is what has driven the growth of penetration levels. He explains that within a circle like Maharastra, users can call across cities within the same state, which help consumers who are into regional and inter-city businesses.

Escotel, which runs mobile services in Kerala, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (west), has structured its business plan around selling prepaid plastic calling cards to subscribers.

Though users end up paying higher airtime charges, they pay no rental and have a strict control over the total bill that they pay.