Page 66 - TRI Annual Report

Transform Rural India
Big Bet Ideas
We refer to select TRI initiatives as
"Big Bets" because they hold
significant importance in realising
our vision of "Regenerative
Development." These bets involve
TRI's commitment to channel
institutional energy and
intellectual capital towards their
success. They come with a certain
level of uncertainty, as bold and
impactful societal changes often
do. Whether these bets are truly
"big bettable" or "shovel-ready"
and whether they can rally
stakeholder commitments and
investments to translate into
substantial actions can only be
determined with time. We are
investing our energy in making
them happen, and the challenge
lies in achieving this goal.
We aim to explore how creative
disruption can drive community
engagement in achieving our
goals. Through concrete bets, we
hope to encourage the collective
pursuit of smart solutions,
leveraging the collective
intelligence to address both
known and unknown challenges.
This requires the mobilisation of
untapped ideas, underutilized
technology, and necessary
funding for success.
In this section, we explain why
these initiatives deviate from
business-as-usual approaches,
highlighting the magnitude of the
problem, the moral imperative,
and the supportive factors that
extend beyond a linear results
chain. Our intention is to instil
confidence in the collaborative
potential to overcome these
challenges together.
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The Sustainable
Development Goals
embody the
aspirations of people
everywhere for lives
of peace, prosperity
and dignity on a
healthy planet. To
uphold our core
promise to leave no
one behind, we need
action from everyone,
everywhere.
António Guterres
Secretary General,
United Nations
In the 2022 Global Index of
SDGs, India ranked 121 out of
163 countries, showing a
decline from its previous
rankings of 117 in 2020 and 120
in 2021. Recent articles in
Lancet and NITI Aayog
Panch Pran' or highlight that India is off-track
lifeblood resolves for
the nation when it on at least 19 Sustainable
Development Indicators, with
celebrates its 100th more indicators unlikely to be
achieved by 2030. These
year of independence interlinked off-track indicators
in 2047, first of them is
to make India a have consequences for social,
economic, and environmental
developed nation. sustainability.
Narendra Modi The Prime Minister's vision of
Prime Minister of India
India becoming a high-income
country by 2047 necessitates
significant growth, raising per
capita income from the current
$2000 to $21,000 and creating
a $37 trillion economy.
Currently, 800 million people in
India receive free rations. Our
focus is on transforming this
population into a productive
resource, particularly in rural
areas where a significant
portion resides. To achieve
sustained double-digit growth
and reduce inequality, we need
fail-safe social protection
measures and a high-growth
ecosystem in rural villages. This
involves shifting the workforce
to high-yield agriculture,
developing a new model for
rural manufacturing and
services, and implementing a
"new deal" for double-digit
growth. The off-track indicators
are concentrated in TRI's focus
states of Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar
Pradesh, and Bihar. On the
positive side, internet access,
bank accounts, full vaccination
coverage, improved sanitation,
multidimensional poverty
reduction, access to electricity,
and progress in reducing
under-5 and neonatal mortality
provide a strong foundation for
successful initiatives.
TRI is committing itself to
two departure-from-
business-as-usual ideas:
High Income Natural
Farming and Rural
Manufacturing and Service
Growth, which serve as the
key bets for transformative
impact.
“New Rural” as Engine of
Growth | Establish Growth
Cluster
The State Economy relies
heavily on agriculture, with a
marginal growth in the service
sector and a declining small
industry. Jobless growth and a
decline in worker productivity
highlight the inability of the
industrial and service sectors to
generate employment.
Achieving a ten-fold increase in
per capita income to $21,000
requires significant growth in
agriculture (4x), industry (14x),
and services (10x),
necessitating a shift in the
traditional economic growth
paradigm. Rural prosperity
depends on the growth of
worker productivity, as
cultivators earn 2.27 times the
income of laborers, while
non-farm workers earn more
than twice the income of
cultivators.
The "New Rural" approach
prioritises the expansion of
local opportunities for
value-growth and increased
productivity across primary,
secondary, and tertiary sectors.
It aims to leverage local
resources, boost local
consumption and demand, and
Annual Report 2022-23
promote digital-first • Incentivising the • Several Mini and Nano also leverage e-commerce
manufacturing and services establishment of dynamic Enterprises (MNEs) are platforms.
growth. Traditional models of rural industries such as supported by initiatives like
• Skill hubs in industrial
workforce diversification into agro-based, forest-based, MGNREGS, NRLM, Kaushal clusters will form a big part
mineral-based, and textile
large-scale manufacturing may
Bharat, and RSETI, along
not be effective anymore due industries and modern with public financing. Village of the job opportunities in
to technological small-scale industries can industries like processing the service sector, spanning
advancements. Instead, the generate local employment cereals and pulses, areas like food service,
logistics, and retail.
focus is on harnessing rural and investment and further manufacture of oils and
paper, handicrafts, etc. can
profits that can be
competitive advantages in the
bio-economy and leveraging reinvested.
digitisation to eliminate
economic barriers. Disrupting
the rural economy while
emphasising agricultural
growth is crucial for facilitating
the transition of labour from
agriculture to secondary and
tertiary sectors, leading to
higher productivity and income.
Elements of Growth Cluster
for Farm-allied and Non-Farm
• Spatial and demographic
trends indicate that Large
Villages with significant
urban occupational
tendencies will significantly
increase. Almost a quarter
Indian Rural population is
going to be in this transition
space, and this will be a
natural lever of
manufacturing and service
sector growth in India.
• The primary sector, including
high-value agriculture,
forestry, textiles have
near-rural linkages to
secondary and tertiary
sectors, such as food,
bio-based value chains
including tourism, carbon
sequestration and water.
Business models related to
food, bio-based activities,
and ecosystem services
connected to the availability
of renewable resources
create comparative
advantages for the “rural
sector”.
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