To create wealth in Rural India / Villages, one should closely observe the Socio-Economic situation of a village to understand the Problems ,Challenges & Opportunities through different lenses
1.Politician Lens
2.Bureaucracy Lens
3.Entrepreneurs Lens
The more we see through the lens of Entrepreneur, the better the solutions will have bottom-up approach ,sustainable and Community Led /Ownership
I feel from the lens of textiles, Indian villages have a lot to offer. There are clusters of artisans in every village offering products from their heritage dating back centuries. I even saw the potential of social enterprise in it. However, beating the pricing of factory-made products and the lack of consumer awareness and psychology in India, made me wonder if there was truly a way to have it make it a profitable venture in which rural communities are empowered and we dont lose our culture and heritage.
We should be first customers to use them and spread a word or influence our near and dear ones to use the product .
The problem is, that the product needs a lot of artisanship. The cost naturally increases due to the high skill and amount of labor needed. The pricing of factory-made goods is 1/10th of that from an economical perspective.
You could buy sarees for as low as Rs 50 retail in Surat, and of very decent look and quality.
Now, the market for people who can afford such products is the urban rich, who thanks to the income inequality in India, are just the 1% of folks. The psychology of them supporting local artisanship products over GUCCI/PRADA is a call to question. Heck, even politicians don’t wear goods made by communities of their constituencies.
To influence people to be socially conscious in their purchasing pattern in India, seems to be an extemely tough thing.
This is huge challenge , i am sure new youth leadership with conscious mindset will create models in their own fields for a sustainable future
Selling such products as a small business with premium pricing would work, but isn’t sustainable at a large enough scale to support a whole art from dying against factory-made goods. Eventually, consumers want value for money, and young Indians simply do not have disposable income to go out of their way to spend when the majority struggle with education loans, rainy day money, etc. The majority are first-generation middle-class people, who would try to invest in assets or buy local garments available at a minimum. The wealth inequality has prevented a lot of good from happening. I don’t expect Adani to come and start purchasing and sustaining all communities of artisans.