Rural India is not necessarily agricultural. More than a third of rural households in India derive their income from services or manufacturing - not from farming. In the successful farming states of Punjab, Kerala and Haryana, over half of all rural households have escaped agriculture altogether.

According to the 2001 Census, 30 per cent of rural Indian households - accounting for 41.6 million families - availed of banking services. Clearly, these are the financially and economically better off households.

The cities are struggling to provide transpiration, housing and other infrastructure. According to major think tanks, India must do what America did between 1960s and 1980s. America just spread out as a country. Cities are still there but the economy is based on suburbs and the scope of rural suburbs is immense.

Leveraging E-Commerce for Rural Growth

The heart of Gandhi's vision was swadeshi which meant not only the spinning wheel and khadar cloth but local self-reliance on the village level to revitalize rural India and e-commerce may be a fuel to propel this dream. Time has come for the small scale industries and handloom weavers not to depend on sales entirely through government subsidies. It is important to generate a new class of entrepreneur and new class of training. Instead of rural India coming to urban marketing centers, the reverse phenomena has to take place and e-commerce can successfully pioneer this movement.

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* Contributed by -
Lijo Isac,
MBA (FT), Batch of 2006,
Faculty Of Management Studies,
Delhi University, Delhi.