Ashwin Upadhyaya’s Blog

Often, we require rural statistical information related to our business. How many farming communities exist in an area. What is the forest cover in an area. What is the existing economic scenario in rural areas. And many more like this. How do you find such information?

The answer is to visit Gram Panchayat offices, Agricultural information centers, rural forest offices etc. Yes, all of them are government offices. Strangely, these offices are not like the government offices we see in cities where apathy rules. Rural offices typically consist of 2 or 3 officers. In all my recent experiences these rural officers have been extremely helpful. Being in a rural area, their expertise is seldom sought by any. As a result, they are more than happy to talk when a city fellow asks their expertise.

The reports prepared by these offices collectively form a summarized report at the Taluk level. These move higher to the district level, state and then the national level. During this process however, much of the qualitative information gets smudged as the information reaches higher levels. Only the quantitative information typically remains. Quantitative information most of the times can give a wrong idea of the real situation on ground. For example, community forestry on a national report may not be true at the ground level (as I have seen in one instance).

The rural market may be huge. Yet, it is extremely complex too. And as far as I have seen, rural areas can’t be generalized. Every village is unique with its own set of benefits and problems. If you are in a business dealing with villages, you have to solve one village at a time. No single solution applies to all.

Another thing is, I see an opportunity here. An aggregated knowledge pool of rural statistics which is inclusive of real opinions, reviews etc on the ground situation might be extremely valuable.