Diary of a Rural Manager!

Access Development Services Access Livelihoods Consulting Action for Agricultural Renewal in Maharashtra (AFARM), Pune Action for Food Production (AFPRO) Action for Social Advancement (ASA) AFC INDIA LIMITED Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) BAIF Institute for Sustainable Livelihoods and Development Basix Krishi Samruddhi Limited Bhartiya Sammrudhi Investments and Consulting Services Limited (BASICS) Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) Centre of Agriculture and Rural Developments (CARD) CTRAN Consulting Limited Dhan Foundation Dvara Trust Ek Lavya Foundation Harsha Trust Heifer India Indian Farm Forestry Dev. Co-operative Ltd. (IFFDC) Indian Grameen Services (IGS) Indian Institute of Millet Research (IIMR), Hyderabad Indian Society of Agribusiness Professionals (ISAP) Indo Global Social Service Society KRISHI VIKAS SAHAKARI SAMITI LTD. (KVSS) Lupin Human Welfare & Research Foundation Madhya Bharat Consortium of Farmers Producer Co Ltd. Maha Farmers Producer Company (MAH...

1. FPOs created by NABARD and SFAC 2.  Operational Guidelines for Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organizations 3.  Strategy Paper for promotion of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs)   4. Frequently Asked Questions for FPOs:  SFAC , NCDEX , ICSI &  E-NAM   5.  Farmer Friendly Handbook For Schemes & Programmes 6. Guidebook of Training Modules for FPO by BIRD, Lucknow 7. Live Quotes of Future Prices of Commodities 8.  Circular on Early Pay-in Facility for Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) 9.  Plan for utilization of regulatory fees foregone by SEBI 10.  NCDEX under its price dissemination policy offers you to avail the SMS facility .  11.  State-wise List of the Warehouses Registered with WDRA 12. Resource Book on Formation and Functioning of Farmer Producer Companies 13. Guidelines for promotion of Producers’ Enterprises Under DAY-NRLM 14. Financing for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) ...

Previous Posts: Vocational Orientation and Counseling in Skill Development and Youth Mobilization Process in Skill Development can be accessed here. At present, developed countries don’t have the demographics to support their labor market and will need to depend on the rest of the world.  India has a working population of 400.7 million with a thriving education sector. India’s demographic dividend can be leveraged to meet the requirements of developed countries across diverse sectors. For the last 30 years or so, India’s youth have been part of the workforce across the Middle East, Canada, and the United Kingdom.   Yet the proportion of formally skilled workers in India is extremely low, at 4.69% of the total workforce, compared to 24% in China, 52% in the US, 68% in the UK, 75% in Germany, 80% in Japan, and 96% in South Korea.  Hence, the skills ecosystem should not only cater to the existing Indian industry requirements but should have a definite room for the int...

India is among the top three global economies in the number of digital consumers. With 560 million internet subscriptions in 2018, up from 238.71 million in 2013, India is the second-largest internet subscriptions market in the world. [1] The Government of India runs large-scale benefits and subsidy programs for its citizens.  To ensure accurate targeting of the beneficiaries, digital verification to eliminate duplicates, ghost recipients, and fraud. Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) was started on 1st January 2013. DBT is utilized to eliminate losses and inefficiencies in the disbursement of benefits and subsidies across wages, food, fertilizer, cooking gas, power, and other areas. Direct Benefit Transfer is already showing the changing landscape of the government-to-citizen (G2C) payments system. Requirements To further expand the reach of such digital payment programs, banking infrastructure needs to be enhanced by ensuring sufficient bank branches, banking correspondents, the post ...

“Never invest in a business you cannot understand.” - Warren Buffett Experience is a bad teacher as it gives the test before lessons. I have invested last year amid the SENSEX meltdown ( Portfolio in Aug 2020 ) and ( My Investment Universe ). The wealth was created in the bear market (60% upsurge). I have tried to document personal decisions and convictions from the experience in the equity market. Any stock market is driven by herd mentality and kept afloat by confidence. The system is inherently a closed-feedback loop. Hence, sharing experiences matters. My investment philosophy is really simple: invest in great businesses. My diligence is also focused on finding the sources of the competitive advantages of these companies, their track record of dealing with technological disruptions, and the wisdom of their capital allocation decisions. Lessons 1. The long-term target is to own 10 to 20 stocks in the portfolio. I have trimmed down the portfolio from 34 to 21 stocks. No individua...

A few days ago, I read a blog post ( Understanding Collective ) and a working paper ( The current and potential role of self-help group federations in India ) on the SHGF (Self Help Group Federation).  I have the privilege of working with Chaitanya and the NRLM program for promoting community-based institutions.  I am sharing my insights from reading literature and working with SHGF. This was long overdue with the promise made to Dr. Sudha Kothari madam.  A brief outline on SHGF before diagnosis: The role of SHGFs has varied by state, promoter organization as SHPIs (government, multilateral, or NGOs), and program maturity. SHGFs play diverse roles, their common goal is to strengthen SHGs, route the finance to SHGs, build their capacity and make them organisationally sustainable.  SHGF is usually set up in three tiers (SHG, village cluster, and federation). SHGFs engage in financial intermediation. SHGF acts as the host organization for the SHG in terms of channelin...

This post is in the continuity of the personal-finance series where earlier blog post: Personal Finance - Investment  was published in May 2020. RBI published a very important ‘ Indian Household Finance Survey ’ in August 2017. The report highlighted that: The average Indian household holds 84% of its wealth in real estate and other physical goods, 11% in gold, and the residual 5% in financial assets. A disproportionately high share of wealth allocated to physical (i.e. non-financial) assets, such as gold.  Under-investment in long-term insurance and pension products. Households can move up between 0.4 pp (percentage points) and 1.6 pp by taking on insurance to avoid the burden of emergency credit associated with medical costs Disproportionally large reliance on unsecured debt, mostly from non-institutional sources (e.g. moneylenders). ...