Why India is Not So Affected by the Global Economic Crisis
Imagine an economy growing at over seven percent, even at a time when the world is facing a massive crisis. Imagine a service sector, that is growing by leaping and bounds, bound, as it is, by tradition and religious values. Imagine an economy that is producing MBAs in several lakhs, and not thousands.
This is the story of the Indian economy. Of a country called India, which has an economy that cannot and will not just go down under, though it is not insulated from the global economic crisis.
The Indian Railways has one of the largest networks in the world. There are some five hundred express trains that keep going from one destination to another, and some trains criss-cross distances of around three thousand kilometres, travelling at an average speed of around eigty kiliometres per hour. The Indian railways makes huge money, which runs into billions of dollors. The firm and secure employment of six lakh employees of the Indian Railway employees, helps the service sector to grow, and this forms the backbone of the economy in one way or the other.
The business class is strong too. Hundreds of thousands of hotels serve a variety of food in all the metros, the urban and the semi-urban centers. These hotels make huge money and the owners laugh all the way to the bank. The money that gets generated translates intelf into cars, expensive jewellery, clothes and what have you.
The religious sentiments also keep the economy growing. Tirupathi, is a booming town in the South Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. Every day five lakh people ( half a millon) visit the famous Lord Venkateswara temple, and the hotels, the lodges, the shops and establishments and the shopping centres make brisk buiness running into billions of rupees. (one US dollor is aournd rupees 48, at current prices).
The cell phone revolution in India is one revolution that will serve as big case studies for any business school in any part of the world. Today, the organizations are getting upto fifty percent of new business from the rurual areas. There is a quiet revolution going on in rural India, particularly in the rural areas of States such as the South Indian State of Tamil Nadu. Through a very effective network of micro-finance, there are hundreds of self-help groups of even semi-literate or illeterate women, who make monthly incomes of not less than five thousand rupees ($100). Today, this money is quite sufficient to keep a family going, as each family with incomes such as this, gets twenty kilograms of good quality rice from the Public Distribution System for less than one US dollar. This support from the Government helps millions of lower middle-class families enjoy a bit of disposable income that gets spent on essential groceries, which, in turn, keeps the economy growing.
This is one just glimpse of what India really is. This is a small socio-economic anaylis. A detailed analysis with some statistics will reveal several other facts. This is exactly what this author would like to do in the next few articles.
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