A little bit about rural India:
I've spent the past two weeks travelling throughout the country. My access to internet has been sketchy, hence the dearth of entries on my part.
Last week I visited Delhi to visit credit-franchises around the area. For the un-initiated, credit-franchises (or CF's) are small-business owners in rural areas of India who have contracted with ICICI Bank (http://www.icicibank.com) to provide the bank's products to the rural population. It is an effort by the bank to extend its 'footprint' further into the rural areas without incurring the high costs of establishing a brick-and-morter branch. Indeed, the strategy is fraught with potential privacy and reputational issues. Hence the bank's willingness to let a bunch of academics try and figure out the strategy and its implications.
I first visited the Jaipur area in the state of Rajasthan, south-west of Delhi. Rajasthan, appropriately named, is the land of the Raj's and is the classic India most foreigners have flash across their minds when the country is mentioned. Camels are everywhere. Great palaces built by the old Raj's leap out of an otherwise drab landscape. Many of the palaces have been converted into hotels and resorts for tourists. Of the two CF's I visited in the area, one was a grain-merchant (essentially a commodity middle-man between farmers and factories) and the other was a marble/stone retailer. Both were chosen for their connections to the local farmers and their consequent knowledge of the farmer's credit-worthiness. Both were in their mid-twenties.
I next visited the Meerut area in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP). UP is the most densely populated state in the country. It's distinguishing feature in my mind was the kilometers and kilometers of lush, green sugarcane. Another ubiquitous feature of the area are the stacks of dried dung piled 12 feet high and covered with hay to survive the coming monsoon season. The dung will be used as heating-fuel in the winter months when the temperature drops close to freezing for several weeks.
The next day I visited CFs in the Karnal district of the state of Haryana. The farmers in Haryana are comparatively wealthy relative to other state's farmers as the fertile land is particularly productive there. ICICI is anticipating a great deal of business here as they will be the first private bank in the area and the first bank to aggresively cater to the farmers' needs.
Lamentably I forgot to bring our camera with me so I have no pictures yet to show. However, I am taking two days tomorrow to visit CFs in the state of Karnataka (rhymes with Battlestar Galactica) and I will have my camera at the ready.
I've spent the past two weeks travelling throughout the country. My access to internet has been sketchy, hence the dearth of entries on my part.
Last week I visited Delhi to visit credit-franchises around the area. For the un-initiated, credit-franchises (or CF's) are small-business owners in rural areas of India who have contracted with ICICI Bank (http://www.icicibank.com) to provide the bank's products to the rural population. It is an effort by the bank to extend its 'footprint' further into the rural areas without incurring the high costs of establishing a brick-and-morter branch. Indeed, the strategy is fraught with potential privacy and reputational issues. Hence the bank's willingness to let a bunch of academics try and figure out the strategy and its implications.
I first visited the Jaipur area in the state of Rajasthan, south-west of Delhi. Rajasthan, appropriately named, is the land of the Raj's and is the classic India most foreigners have flash across their minds when the country is mentioned. Camels are everywhere. Great palaces built by the old Raj's leap out of an otherwise drab landscape. Many of the palaces have been converted into hotels and resorts for tourists. Of the two CF's I visited in the area, one was a grain-merchant (essentially a commodity middle-man between farmers and factories) and the other was a marble/stone retailer. Both were chosen for their connections to the local farmers and their consequent knowledge of the farmer's credit-worthiness. Both were in their mid-twenties.
I next visited the Meerut area in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP). UP is the most densely populated state in the country. It's distinguishing feature in my mind was the kilometers and kilometers of lush, green sugarcane. Another ubiquitous feature of the area are the stacks of dried dung piled 12 feet high and covered with hay to survive the coming monsoon season. The dung will be used as heating-fuel in the winter months when the temperature drops close to freezing for several weeks.
The next day I visited CFs in the Karnal district of the state of Haryana. The farmers in Haryana are comparatively wealthy relative to other state's farmers as the fertile land is particularly productive there. ICICI is anticipating a great deal of business here as they will be the first private bank in the area and the first bank to aggresively cater to the farmers' needs.
Lamentably I forgot to bring our camera with me so I have no pictures yet to show. However, I am taking two days tomorrow to visit CFs in the state of Karnataka (rhymes with Battlestar Galactica) and I will have my camera at the ready.
posted by Rock at 5:50 AM
1 Comments:
I'm glad you're out of your "dearth" of entry's bro, yeah, I found that funny
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