Major missed opportunities...

First few pages of any macroenomics textbook will inform you that land, labour & capital are three basics of economic prosperity. But, Indian labour can do it other way round. Indians working abroad give maximum remittances in the world, to India. If that money is used for development, it can, not only help in eradicating poverty, but also provide better opportunity to future generations.

According to a new UN study, India has topped the list of highest remittances in the world, from its migrants to foreign shores. Indian migrants have sent home over $24.5 billion last year, surpassing Mexico ($24.2 billion) & China ($21.2 billion). The remittance amount that developing countries together send from industrialised nations ($300 billion) has surmounted the development assistance & FDI ($271 billion), it gets. While global remittance grows by 10%, most of it is flowing to families in rural areas and are used for basic necessities. Though about 10-20% is saved, it is rarely kept in financial institutions for further investments.

Although, such funds undeniably help thousands of families, their optimal utilisation for developmental purposes still remain a big challenge for India. One can easily term it as one of the numerous missed opportunities for rural development. While the common man in India is literally tired of hearing the same old tale of paucity of funds for development, it makes no sense to let billions get withered away simply because there’s lack of opportunities to channelise it. All that is needed is to let the private banks whitewash rural India the way they have done it for their urban counterparts. The rest would take its own course.