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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local....

Festive Surge

India’s bazaars have glittered this Diwali with the unmistakable glow of consumer confidence. The country’s festive sales crossed a staggering Rs. 6 lakh crore with goods alone accounting for Rs. 5.4 lakh crore and services contributing Rs. 65,000 crore. More remarkable still, the bulk of this spending flowed through India’s traditional markets rather than e-commerce platforms. After years of economic caution and digital dominance, Indians are once again shopping in person and buying local. This reversal owes much to policy. The recent rationalisation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which trimmed rates across categories from garments to home furnishings, has given consumption a timely push. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s September rate cuts, combined with income tax relief and easing interest rates, have strengthened household budgets just as inflation softened. The middle class, long squeezed between rising costs and stagnant wages, has found reason to spend again. Retailers report that shoppers filled their bags with everything from lab-grown diamonds and casual wear to consumer durables and décor, blurring the line between necessity and indulgence. The effect has been broad-based. According to Crisil Ratings, 40 organised apparel retailers, who together generate roughly a third of the sector’s revenue, could see growth of 13–14 percent this financial year, aided by a 200-basis-point bump from GST cuts alone. Small traders too have flourished. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) estimates that 85 percent of total festive trade came from non-corporate and traditional markets, a robust comeback for brick-and-mortar retail that had been under siege from online rivals. This surge signals a subtle but significant cultural shift. The “Vocal for Local” and “Swadeshi Diwali” campaigns struck a patriotic chord, with consumers reportedly preferring Indian-made products to imported ones. Demand for Chinese goods fell sharply, while sales of Indian-manufactured products rose by a quarter over last year. For the first time in years, “buying Indian” has become both an act of economic participation and of national pride. The sectoral spread of this boom underlines its breadth. Groceries and fast-moving consumer goods accounted for 12 percent of the total, gold and jewellery 10 percent, and electronics 8 percent. Even traditionally modest categories like home furnishings, décor and confectionery recorded double-digit growth. In the smaller towns that anchor India’s consumption story, traders say stable prices and improved affordability kept registers ringing late into the festive weekend. Yet, much of this buoyancy rests on a fragile equilibrium. Inflation remains contained, and interest rates have been eased, but both could tighten again. Sustaining this spurt will require continued fiscal prudence and regulatory clarity, especially as digital commerce continues to expand its reach. Yet for now, the signs are auspicious. After years of subdued demand and inflationary unease, India’s shoppers appear to have rediscovered their appetite for consumption and their faith in domestic enterprise. The result is not only a record-breaking Diwali, but a reaffirmation of the local marketplace as the heartbeat of India’s economy.

Water Woes is the Issue

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Launched as a flagship programme of the Maharashtra government, it initially created an impact in some parts of the state. But in a few years it turned out to be a failed scheme. The state government launched the project “Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyaan” in 2014 in a bid to make Maharashtra a drought-free state by 2019. The scheme targeted drought-prone areas by improving water conservation measures in order to make them more water sustainable. Under the scheme, decentralised water bodies were installed at various locations within villages to enhance the groundwater recharge. It also proposed to strengthen and rejuvenate water storage capacity and percolation of tanks and other sources of storage.


On paper the scheme was excellent, it took off well, but after sometime the much-hyped scheme started losing its impact and eventually it derailed. People from Vidarbha region overwhelmingly supported this scheme. Since 2014, hundreds of villages in Marathwada, Madhya Maharashtra, and especially Vidarbha have experienced droughts for consecutive years. They saw some ray of hope with this scheme introduced by the then BJP government. However, various flaws in planning and implementation came to the fore and people started taking the backseat. Water tanker dependency in many parts remained as it is which had underscored the failure.      


As the Congress party was dead against this scheme right from its inception. One of the first decisions the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government was to stay the Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyaan, a water conservation scheme the previous government launched in 2014, and initiate an investigation into the irregularities in the scheme. The Congress, which was in the opposition when the scheme was launched, had charged the Devendra Fadnavis government with corruption in its implementation.


In addition to this the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in its report submitted in September 2020 after examining the works in some of the villages, suggested further inquiry. On July 22, the four-member inquiry committee set up by the MVA government submitted its report. The committee recommended that 1,000 projects taken up under the scheme should be investigated by the State Anti-Corruption Bureau.


The scheme was to make 5,000 villages free of water scarcity. It also targets drought-prone areas by improving water conservation measures in order to make them more water sustainable. The vital part was to arrest maximum run-off water especially during the monsoon months in village areas known to receive less rainfall annually. Under the scheme, decentralised water bodies were installed at various locations within villages to enhance groundwater recharge. The work of this scheme gathered a lot of dust and became standstill giving the BJP a setback.

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