Co-operative Credit Organisations and some numbers

The cooperative credit structure consisting of over 1,25,605 outlets purveys more than 62 per cent to total agri-rural credit. While a network of 66,573 commercial banks and 14,505 Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) along with 81,078 branches, these put together account for only 38 per cent of rural credit. There are 30 State Cooperative banks with 953 branches and 368 District-level Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) with 12,858 branches carrying a network of 1,08,779 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS).

India's first HSPA (3G) Broadband access to Rural India

Ericsson is the provider for India’s very first HSPA (high speed packet access) broadband network, which delivers the advantage of 3G. It is introduced as a pilot project in the beginning of September across 18 villages and 15 towns in Tamil Nadu.

Some Numbers on Rural India

Rural India accounts for more than 50% of the GDP and out of total 62.97 million households, having income more than 5 lakhs pa, nearly 28.68 million households (46%) live in Rural India. The rural market is projected to be bigger in India than the urban market for fast moving consumer goods, with an annual size of Rs 48000 crore ($12 billion) in 2004 and growing.

Rural consumption expenditure is accounted for around 60 per cent, or Rs 9,13,500 crore ($228 billion), of the country's total consumption expenditure.

Rural Indian Innovators

I have written previously about National Innovation Foundation which collects the grass-root innovations from Rural India. I am listing few of such innovations showed on Discovery Channel.


Please note that all the following videos are less than a minute ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYyQfwh7obg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE_-TIoncKk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md3D8dVHuWM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_9bCs0jukw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j24BdUAxbU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unHpHYboq4s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK7VSR3BeuE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmiNanE64L8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQiajQcacJU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mqGPVUVk2o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv4XE1SNaZA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXjiQOazDko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO_vsjppeUU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zya0OQRqY1E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNGBze67rTA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGkoSF7GZVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFYZghNHA9c

Want to know more about National Innovation Foundation? Watch these videos (together:20 min):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHeUjHHFsE8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFYZghNHA9c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zFJQxwtkDk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFdh7biSgU0

Running a rural school and need investment??

This is one of the most fabulous news I have recently heard. Please read through.

Orient Global Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Orient Global Group, is pleased to announce it has created a USD 100 million Education Fund committed to supporting entrepreneurial solutions to improve the quality and availability of education in developing countries around the world. Education is the foundation for economic development and individual fulfilment, promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, and it plays an essential role in fostering social harmony and teaching us how to live together.

Whether one is addressing poverty, healthcare, unemployment or equality, education is one of the most effective ways to improve lives. Yet due to inequalities in the education systemin underdeveloped countries, over 100 million underprivileged children do not have access to education, whilst the quality of education received by many more children is extremely low. Orient Global Foundation seeks to bridge this gap.

Announcing the creation of the Education Fund, Richard Chandler, Founder and Chairman of Orient Global, commented: “Education is essential if we are to create and sustain a better future. Orient Global Foundation will promote a holistic education for underprivileged children, allowing them to release their talents and creativity for the benefit of themselves and others. Education is the bridge between poverty and prosperity. Our goal is to ensure that every child – no matter their sex, race, family background or socioeconomic status – will receive a quality education that allows them to compete in a rapidly changing global economy.”

Professor James Tooley will join Orient Global Foundation from 2 April 2007, as President of the Education Fund. Professor Tooley presently directs the E.G. West Research Centre at Newcastle University which is dedicated to understanding the role of choice, competition, and entrepreneurship in the delivery of education for all.

James Tooley commented: “Our research already demonstrates that some of the poorest people in the global village are enlisting the support not of their governments or international agencies, but of entrepreneurs, to help educate their children and improve their lives. In some of the most disadvantaged places on earth, in the slums, shanty towns and villages across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, there is an extraordinary blossoming of private education. Orient Global Foundation’s Education Fund provides the means to add momentum and scale to this phenomenon.”

Internet is set to benefit the Rural Indian farmer

The most noticeable of the ICT projects in Rural India are e-Choupal, iShakti, and esagu. Today, they lead a silent revolution that empowers farmers with relevant information to make their lives better.

ITC e-Choupal web portal brings real-time information on weather forecasts and customized knowledge on better farming practices to the farmers' doorstep to improve his crop management. ITC e-Choupal supply chain brings good quality farm inputs at competitive prices to increase his farm yields.

iShakti provides information and services to the farmers through a portal, which has contents pertaining to a variety of rural issues. It enables farmers to have a solution for a pest problem.

Esagu has a three-tier system consists of farmers as end users, coordinators as intermediaries to obtain crop status through digital photographs and text and communicate the advice to the farmers. The agricultural scientists with knowledge system prepare farm advices.

Rural India plans to step up fight against AIDS

According to this news:

Political leaders from across rural India are to draw up an action plan to help stem the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in villages, where the majority of new infections are occuring, officials said. Representatives from 620 districts, as well and mayors and other community leaders, would come together for the first time at a convention to draw up a strategy on how India could strengthen its local response to the pandemic. At this convention, community leaders could talk out against discrimination against those infected with HIV/AIDS, help promote the use of condoms and in some cases decide to make HIV/AIDS a priority when allocating funds from local budgets.

ICICI shaping a business plan to solve Rural India Banking puzzle

ICICI's CEO Kamath says:

We believe that to break into the top league of global banks, ICICI will have to follow a course that few banks in the world have done -- and that is, leverage the rural economy. This is something that most banks don't do because it requires hard work. So our challenge is to invent a new business model where we can create a distribution base effectively in 600,000 villages in India, and to learn to do that at one-tenth the cost of urban India. Just to put that on a scale that someone could understand, we believe that to succeed in urban India, we need to do be able to do business at one-tenth the cost of the West. The challenge is to be able to work with partners because we believe that the branch-led model will not work in this context. For example, we might partner with a local financial institution, a micro-finance agency or a company -- someone who is already in the village for a business purpose. We might even partner with someone who is selling fertilizer or seed or tractors. How can we leverage these partnerships to do business? That question drives the need for a new business model to reach out to this market.

The biggest risk is the failure of the monsoon. Now can you lend to rural India without fixing this risk? What we did was to ask if this was an insurable risk. Could we get such insurance? The answer was yes. Could we then sell this insurance to the farmers? Again, the answer was yes. Finally, we asked if this insurance could be further reinsured outside India so that the risk was shared even more widely. Yet again, the answer was yes.

The typical approach to rural lending has been through micro-loans, and that has certainly had some degree of success. But a large-scale rural banking model where you are ultimately trying to reach a population of 600 million people has not been done. That is our challenge -- and also our opportunity.

Rural India set to get Soho-style homes

According to this news:

National Housing Bank in association with public sector banks, is all set to launch a new scheme called Productive Housing in Rural Areas. The scheme, aimed at providing housing in the rural areas, is likely to cost Rs 1,500 crore. Of this amount, NHB may fund about Rs 500 crore. About 25 to 30 districts had been identified for the project.

“We will provide the basic dwelling unit while banks will provide the work area in a house. Owners will need to present a proper business plan for repayment of loans,” Sridhar said (Chairman and managing director of NHB). NHB is also drawing up a plan for integrated townships to be set up next to small industrial clusters in semi-urban areas. “Depending on the area, the cost of the project could vary from Rs 500 crore to Rs 2,000 crore,” Sridhar said, adding that the plan was yet to be finalised. The townships would require independent schools, hospitals and shopping areas, he added.

Guest (tourist) is treated like God in Rural India

I am from a rural Indian village and I was taught by my parents: "Matru Devobhava, Pitru Devobhava, Acharya Devobhava, Atidhi Devobhava" which means "Regard the mother as God, the father as God, the preceptor as God and the guest as God". This is followed even now in rural villages. Recently Washinton Post carried an article about Rural India tourist visit. Editor writes: Here, in India's heartland, they really do treat guests like gods. Even sick ones.

On a different note, I wrote about 20-30 foreigners tourist visit experiences in India.

Rural India Primary Education challenge: Anyone there?

A worldbank's $12+ billion dollar bill cannot solve the primary education puzzle. The challenge of educational quality is a difficult one. Money is needed, but is not enough to solve the problems. Ideas, expertise and experience are equally important.

Rural India prefers branded products

India's 742 million strong rural population, outsizing the US and Europe, is moving towards branded products. Education for women is more than a politician's promise; it's a marketer's delight. Television, cable TV and FMCG products have penetrated the south far more than any other region in India. Ashok Das, MD, Hansa Research says, “Penetration driving strategy better for east and north, while for south the question is how to get value from consumer already using your product and brand.

Reliance to invest $5 billion in Rural India

Accroding to this news:

Reliance plans to invest $5 billion by 2011 to put both the farms and the stores on the road to modernity, connect them through a distribution system guided by the latest logistics technology, and create enough of a surplus to generate $20 billion in agricultural exports annually.

Rural India corners chunk of industries, jobs

Who says economic reforms are urban-centric? The countryside has outperformed urban India in the number of enterprises it houses. Over 61% of the enterprises engaged in economic activities other than crop production and plantation are in rural India compared to just 38.7% in urban areas, according to the figures of the Fifth Economic Census.

Low-cost ATMs for rural India : IIT Chennai invention

According to this news:

Grammteller, unlike other ATMs is meant to be a cash dispenser, which plugs into a kiosk PC, which acts as a tunnel between the dispenser and the bank server thus bypassing use of the 'switch' used by ATMs. The 'financial transaction switch' is an enterprise server that connects the ATM to information from various sources, which then dispenses with the switch, thus reducing the cost of the machine to about Rs. 50, 000. The server is encrypted and runs on a proprietary format developed at IIT-M.

Unlike the PIN numbers log-in access facility, Grammteller is equipped with biometric sensor so that once the customer's fingerprints are registered, PINs need not be used.

Aimed at the rural market, the low-cost ATM makes it more user-friendly for people in rural India who are more into 'finger impression' mindset for taking cash. The thumb-impressions are being registered at the TeNet Lab at IIT-M and are stored and authenticated by ICICI servers in Mumbai.

Good links on Rural India - 2

Please see the first set of links.

K-yan : An e-learning system developed by IIT Mumbai for Rural
WiMAX is good for rural India : Key players in the market are Alcatel, TI, Motorola
Idea launched Mobile PCO services for Rural India
Tarahaat: Network of franchised rural communities and business centres
Highest paid occupation for men in Rural India is Masonry
Telemedicine - Providing Rural India with Quality Healthcare
India innovators foundation to help grassroot innovators in finding investors
Hansdehar is the first village in India to have an official website along with complete its citizens details
Nowpos to offer voice mail services for rural
Tata-Teleservices and ZTE corporation to deploy CDMA2000 in Rural India
3G mobile services to Bridge Rural-Urban Digital Divide
Rural India skips the copper wire and heads straight for wireless networks
Stockholm Competition : IT solutions for the benifit of masses
NTPC lamps to light up rural India
Cellphones answer the call for computers in rural India

Rural schools helping students to get into IITs, Olympiad events

Past few days, this news from Bihar is in top headlines: Ramanujan School of Mathematics helping rural students to get into IITs. Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana in Pune also helps students to get into IITs and Mathematics Olympiad events. Similarly in Kolhapur in Maharashtra, some ignited minds do help rural students.

This should be an eye opener for the people who think reservations are necessary.

Low cost wireless mesh network to provide cheap, reliable data and telephony

A former Silicon Valley dot-commer and members of the underground security group Cult of the Dead Cow are working with local Tibetan exiles to change that using recycled hardware, solar power, open-source software and nerd ingenuity. The volunteers are building a low-cost wireless mesh network to provide cheap, reliable data and telephony to community organizations. A rural village 7,000 feet up in the Himalayas (Dharamsala Wireless Mesh) is an example of "light infrastructure," a concept gaining popularity among tech developers: decentralized, ad hoc networks that can deliver essential services faster than conventional means.

Can this be a solution for rural India?

Women Development : Problems and Solution perspectives

From my childhood I used to get trained to be fearless and take initiatives by myself. My parents and society around me made sure that I can walk on this world as an independent person. Psychologically whenever I am under pressure, depression etc, then my parents, relatives, friends, colleagues, teachers, villagers, news-papers, TV, other media etc everyone and everything on this list made me to think courageously and move forward in life. This kind of severe training I got it for at least 15 years of my whole childhood life and because of which now I feel strong and think way beyond.

On the other hand, I see that every girl-child around me get trained (during the same period of her life) to feel fear to go out, not to take any initiatives on her own and most importantly not to become an independent person in this world. I am extremely surprised to see that, and very unfortunate, even every mother also trains her girl-child to feel fear & inferior. This is the way, this male dominated society makes women to feel insecure thro various ways and means.

Is there any logic behind this:
Are women weaker than their counterparts, physically?? I don’t answer this but then: Definitely they can’t be weaker than a physically disabled man and in any case assuming there is a weaker person, then society should attempt to make him/her feel courageous but not to teach "how to feel insecure". In fact, society attempts the brave lessons for a physically disabled person but not for a woman. Why??

If you look at society closely: Women are taught to be inferior to Men. Which is nothing but women growth potential is upper bounded by Men. Because of this, our economy gets hurt very badly. Economists count the women while calculating GDP per capita but then society does not give fair opportunities so that they can contribute their part to GDP. Just think this: if we can make women (constituting nearly half of the population) part of GDP then we can achieve GDP growth rate 15%.

Solution perspective:
It is a plain and simple fact that howsoever weak a person is: but if he/she is powered with knowledge then nothing limits them. Of the late, knowledge based revolution is taking place and in this upward society everyone bows to knowledge and “just” to it. So it does not matter whether one has muscle power or not and in fact, it does not matter whether one is physically abled or not. Importantly, this revolution has been bridging the gap between the developed economies and developing economies. All those same advantages of developing economies which made that to happen are very much applicable to traditionally suppressed communities like women, caste based or religion based downtrodden, etc.

Business Perspective:
People who convert the social problems into opportunities are known as social entrepreneurs. In our case, examples are already set. Like Mahesh Bhupati who invested his money on Sania has clicked. Koneru Hampi is another example. Now such investments are required. Though it takes longer time for returns from this type of investments but then these have enormous potential to become multiples.

I have very clear-cut & very practical solutions for this problem. But then very few women, who believe that they are not upper bounded by men, should join this mission (ya, you can say Charlie’s Angels :-) ). So why this attempt of mine.

General request to all:
I hope you all realise this difference that is taking place (knowledge revolution). I request you all to engage in this important discussion so that thousands years of suppression problems get solved.

There is a community in Orkut for this purpose. For the readers, who does not know Orkut: it is a friendship network service of Google (similar to Myspace) and it needs an invitation to start an account. Community is like a yahoo group but discussions are public. If you would like to join this community, then you must have an Orkut account, for which you require an invitation. So you may write to me with all your details for an invitation (my gmail id: malapati). Link to the community: http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=17172270

Microsoft and Rural Development

I think, many people have doubts that how they can do rural development activities when they go for work in posh corporate offices or research institutes and having no time for their own family. For them, here is a good news.

Microsoft recently opened a R&D center in Bangalore. So what's is up, for rural developers?

They work broadly in the area of Technology for Emerging Markets.

Current Projects:
Software Data Collection for Rural PC Kiosks
Ethnography of Rural Kiosks
Urban Consumption Patterns in India
Text-Free User Interface
Computers in Agriculture
Computers in Education
Featherweight Computing
Telemedicine
Information Environment of Micro-enterprises
Mapping household well-being and socio-economic mobility
Household credit and investment decision-making

Hurry-up for summer internships, temporary research collaborations and ofcourse, for regular research positions.