Rural residents who stay in the countryside must stand center stage in the next phase of Indian development. Photo: mckaysavage (flickr)

At long last, the rural poor are stepping into the spotlight of Indian economic development.

There is increasing consensus that rural participation will be central to the continuation of the country’s prodigious growth, says Time Magazine. This dawning realization is inspiring a rush of schemes to boost incomes in the countryside — producing a new base of rural consumers.

Traditional development schemes often focus on urbanization, industrialization and increasing standards of living for wealthier city-dwellers. Government subsidies are frequently viewed as the only option for stimulating rural economies. But in India, the paradigm is shifting. What if farmers were to stay put? What if infrastructure that would allow them to turn a profit without leaving the countryside were established and accessible to them? A burgeoning community of development experts, public officials, and business owners are asking these questions.

Samriddhi, a three-year-old start-up in Bihar, India, exemplifies the kind of project produced by this innovative thinking. The company sells produce from more than 5,000 farmers in some of the state’s more lucrative urban markets. Samriddhi focuses on higher wages, trainings for better productivity, fewer middlemen, and more efficient, direct and just supply chains. One of its suppliers, Gulabchand Singh, has seen his income jump by almost 50 percent since he began working with Samriddhi.

Walmart is also tapping into the countryside’s human and natural resources. They’re recruiting more farmers, discounting agricultural products, and bringing in simple but effective techniques and technologies to increase yields and reduce operating costs. Walmart’s goal is to raise farmers’ incomes by 20 percent in five years. "If incomes rise, farmers will sell their produce to Walmart first; if incomes rise enough, they will also become its customers," says Time.

This is the gist of the emerging Indian perspective on development. Samriddhi and Walmart are just two of many companies that have caught on.

In the countryside, “the income gap between Rising India and the Other India is most pronounced.” And it’s there that “hyperlocal, market-based solutions” have the most power to break and reshape corrupt, exploitative, inefficient supply chains; to burst open monopolies; and to rearrange “old power structures and traditions,” says Time. Such changes could place India’s 840 million ruralites at the forefront of the effort to elevate the Other India into Rising India’s ranks.

“India's economic epic has reached the end of Act I," according to Time. Integrating and empowering the country’s rural poor within the larger economy will be key to opening the curtain for Indian Development: Act II.