With 638,365 villages in India, comprising 72% of its population, the growth story of India can be written only where the true India lies. Still most of the villages lack the basic infrastructure and need huge investments to provide the basic facilities and more so the connectivity.
Much before looking at the infrastructure domain, we need to focus on the basic problem which is of education and employment. Till the time people don’t feel the need of good education, the scenario at the basic level of the country is not going to change.
The growth of any country is ultimately propelled by the demand from within the economy, which will get the ultimate momentum only when the 1027million people living in the Indian villages drive the demand side. This is the aspect, which will ultimately drive the growth story of the nation. Take any sector be it FMCG, Banking or Telecommunications, the rural India has far reaching effects for marketers. And, to make all these businesses grow, the rural India must have the purchasing power to fulfill their dreams; only then the supply demand cycle will complete and will create a “pull effect” in the economy, which will automatically drive the economy to great heights.
Talking about the infrastructure requirement, we can divide the infrastructure in two parts – soft infrastructure and hard infrastructure. The hard infrastructure includes roads, bridges, ports, airlines, railways etc., while the soft infrastructure includes education, health, tourism and likewise.
As I have already written about the importance of education and employment, which are the pillars of the soft infrastructure of any society; I would move to the other side of the coin i.e. hard infrastructure, which is as important as the soft infrastructure. If the soft infrastructure is the foundation, the hard infrastructure is building, none of them can sustain in the absence of other. The road connectivity, electricity, railways etc are the basic amenities, which any business needs for its development.
In a way it’s a loop, which needs a positive feedback or say a trigger from the demand side, which can be developed at the rural level by providing them education and employment and simultaneously developing the hard infrastructure to provide the businesses an easy connectivity to these areas.
I would close my article by reiterating one most important point that Infrastructure development, talking only in terms of hard infrastructure will lead us nowhere. We need to look in terms of a self sustaining model, which can drive itself automatically, which needs no fuel to be added to it, no external factor to push it through and this is what I will call the glorious Growth Story of India.
