Do not be surprised if you find women quaffing alcohol at a roadside liquor shop ‘Videshi Sharaab Dukaan’ during your journey from Jhabua to Rajgarh in Madhya Pradesh.

Gender equality gets a totally new dimension when women and men down alcohol at shops under one roof. This is when women are still required to cover their heads some parts of the country.

Thanks to women consuming liquor at par with men, the liquor shop owner claims to have seen a significant growth in liquor consumption, said a report by IDFC Securities.

Unlike the gloom and doom reports about the Indian economy brought out by global banks, IDFC Securities report Tour de India paints a positive picture of the Indian economy.

The analyst who put together the report covered 7,000 km across 7 States – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu – and came to the conclusion that there has been no slowdown in consumption.

Farm sector prospering

According to the report, farmers are much better placed than ever before due to the subsidies, loan waivers and minimum support price given by the government. Water levels en route from Indore to Gujarat were adequate to suffice for a year.

In Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh, farmers, on an average, produce 23 quintals of rice an acre and earn a profit of about Rs 15,000 an acre. Two big farmers who own 100 acres claim to have never made any losses in the past 20 years.

Despite the fears of a delayed monsoon, Nikhil Vora, Managing Director, IDFC Institutional Equities Research said, “The fears are overblown. We expect crop production to be the same as last year”.

For semi-urban transport and farming activities, the likes of Tata Ace, TVS mopeds, Eicher and Mahindra and Mahindra tractors were being used in large numbers. The report also highlights the upcoming infrastructure and smooth roads across most of their voyage.

Interestingly, the report referred to a case in Chhattisgarh where a farmer approached an auto dealership, dumped a sack full of cash on the floor, asked the salesman to take the required amount from it and get him the best vehicle in the showroom.

Moreover, auto dealers in the used-cars segment, which is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 25 per cent, exuded confidence about robust sales.

In a sign that it not just the farmers, shop owners and car dealerships that are prospering, those at the bottom of the pyramid too seem to be earning well. According to the report, security guards at a couple of places earned more than Rs 10,000 a month and a paan shop owner was taking home Rs 250 daily on sales of Rs 1,200.

Food, a money spinner

‘Kolkatta Chat Centre’ in Kodai (TN) and a Chinese eatery in Mhow (MP) earn close to Rs 10,000 daily with a ‘conservative’ margin figure of about 30 per cent, with the owner pocketing Rs 1 lakh a month. A chai wallah (tea stall owner) in the Pal Lahara region of Odisha, selling about 100 cups a day, has a net savings of about Rs 200 per day.

Another roadside ‘Tamil Dhaba’ in the Vadamangalam village in the Kanchipuram dictrict in Tamil Nadu offered a wholesome meal at Rs 35, yet made a neat Rs 2,000 per day. Male and female attendants at this dhaba earned Rs 200 on a daily basis.

If the results in the seven states hold true for rest of the country, then Bharat (rural and semi-urban India) could be really shining.

>beena.parmar@thehindu.co.in

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