A banker's eye view of rural India

Rural India accounts for about half of all consumption. This makes it imperative for companies wishing to establish a foothold in this market to understand the dynamics of the rural economy

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet my rural cousins after a long gap. What was immediately apparent was that most had not managed to improve their lot in the interim years. Rainfall had been sparse, resulting in poor harvests for three consecutive years. With the rural poor migrating to big cities or to more prosperous states for work, both the availability and cost of labour had turned into major issues, they told me. These encounters left me with the question: Is it their own fecklessness that is to blame or are conditions in villages simply too difficult to surmount?