Telecom Industry is Transforming Rural India
Tuesday, 02 October 2007
The weaver’s caste has been on the lowest rung of India’s economic ladder for generations. Once at the center of India's international trade in textiles in the 19th century, the craft eventually lost its status to industrialization. As a result, Indian weavers, regardless of their talent, have long lived in poverty.
Master weaver Ganesh Bicchwe is a perfect example. According to a recent report in BusinessWeek, Bicchwe struggled well into his forties – getting only piecemeal work, having few business connections, and even fewer prospects. Then, in 2005, his life changed.
Bicchwe spent a precious $100 to buy himself a mobile phone. It was a huge investment, but Bicchwe wagered it might enhance his business. Did it ever.
Like many thousands of other small business people in India, getting connected has allowed Bicchwe to become a player in India's reviving textile business -- and in the booming domestic consumer market. Since acquiring his phone, Bicchwe’s business has more than doubled, from $12,000 in sales to $25,000 a year, BusinessWeek reports. He now owns his own home and a separate work space, and has expanded his business -- from 15 looms in 2005 to 35 today. (He wants to add 15 more this year.) The weavers he employs create 20,000 meters of exquisite hand-woven fabric a year, twice the volume produced just two years ago.
Cell Phone Country
There are at least another 1,500 other weavers in Maheshwar – Bicchwe’s home town -- who are thriving thanks to their new cell phone connections. And many other small entrepreneurs in rural areas are seeing their lives improve as well.
Aruna Gaikwad, a fruit and vegetable vendor in Kokrade village, 270 miles from Mumbai, no longer has to rely on local traders to give her a decent price on fresh produce. She can now deal directly with wholesalers a few towns away. When there's a glut of mangoes, for example, she is able to plan her pricing ahead of time. And instead of seeking customers, she now takes orders over the phone, sometimes a day in advance. Her $34 investment in a cell phone has literally transformed her family’s life.
Telecom Boom
Little wonder, then, that India is the fastest-growing telecom market in the world. According to BusinessWeek, both handset and service providers continue to lower the cost of their products. According to Sanjeev Aga, managing director of Idea Cellular, a mobile phone has become the fifth most important household expenditure item for families in India, after: food, clothing, shelter, and education.
India now has a total subscriber base of 190 million, with 6 million new users joining the ranks every month, BusinessWeek reports. By next year, two-thirds of all Indian citizens will own a mobile phone, according to the Indian Cellular Assn., with the subscriber base reaching 450 million by 2010. And, says ICA President Pankaj Mohindroo, "Most of the sales will come from rural India."