Dear Readers, There is a famous saying:
"Ghat ghat par badle paani, kos kos par baani," which means that in India, the taste of water and the tone
of language changes every few miles. As India progresses and marches towards becoming a high-growth nation, the idea of Bharat is gaining prominence. Bharat refers to that part of India rooted in smaller towns, often with limited access to metropolitan infrastructure.
As the country continues its growth trajectory, a key question arises: How are we powering Bharat?
We hosted the second edition of the ETCFO NextGen Summit in Mumbai last week, and I must share how impressed I was with the level of engagement from the CFO community. While a range of
important topics were discussed, the core theme centered on powering Bharat.
As India moves toward becoming the worldâs third-largest economy, it is essential to understand the realities of Bharat and, more importantly, how CFOs are shaping their strategies around it. What is their forward-thinking approach and what kinds of opportunities do they see?
Bharat:
From backdrop to growth engine
Indiaâs economic narrative is being rewritten. For decades, its growth engine was urbanâconcentrated in Mumbaiâs towers, Bengaluruâs tech corridors, and Delhiâs policy circuits. But a new economic geography is emerging, not in the traditional centres of finance and influence, but in the
fringes of Bharatâthe country's rural and semi-urban heartland. If the comments from India Incâs CFOs at our event are any guide, it is here, not in the metros, that the countryâs next economic c
hapter will unfold.
As Kunal Malani, CFO, Motherson Group, put it at the ETCFO NextGen Summit: "Bharat means basically the growth engine that will actually drive India into the future. At the end of the day we still have a large part of the economy which is anti-waste. We have a large part
of the economy which is actually there in the rural areas, in the tier 2 cities and the semi-urban areas.
Bharat, once patronised in boardrooms as a ânext frontier,â is now being embraced as the epicentre of future growth. This is not mere lip service. One CFO revealed that 80% of a Rs 6,000 crore capital expenditure plan is being deployed within Indiaânine of fourteen new plants being
located outside the metro map. That is not a diversification hedge; it is a structural pivot.
Infrastructure, digital rails, and the credit revolution
Several factors are converging to make this recalibration not only logical, but necessary. Urban India, though vital, is increasingly saturatedâin both consumption and infrastructure. Bharat, by contrast, offers scale. Its consumption potential is rising with incomes, aspirations, and
connectivity. Vehicle penetration, for instance, remains low but is catching up fastâoffering a trajectory akin to Chinaâs automotive boom. At the same time, the rural production base is expanding beyond agr
iculture into manufacturing, logistics, and services.
Critically, this opportunity is now matched with enablers. One of the most consequentialâthough underappreciatedârevolutions in India has been in digital payments infrastructure. UPI and Aadhaar-linked accounts have pulled millions of small enterprises into the formal economy. Microenterprises,
once starved of working capital, now leverage e-invoicing and supply chain finance to transact and grow. The rise of digitally enabled MSME lendingâby banks, NBFCs, and fintechsâmarks a structura
l change in Indiaâs credit architecture.
Yet this optimism is tempered with realism. Several CFOs flagged the risk of unbridled lending. Indiaâs microfinance sector is no stranger to boom-and-bust cycles. The recent move by regulators to limit the number of simultaneous lenders to a
single borrower to three is a prudent step. Guardrails are not the enemy of inclusion; they are its enablers.
"A balance is really required in terms of being able to provide the right kind of lending, but also in a very disciplined manner," said Rajeev Mantri, CFO, Bandhan Bank, said at the ETCFO Summit.
Click
here for more articles on Powering Bharat.
Please share your feedback, suggestions if any. You can reach me on
amol.dethe@timesinternet.in
As usual, I am adding here the top 5 stories of the week, trust you will find them meaningful.
1.Audit firms may rethink partner roles as ICAI enforces 60-audit cap per partner
2.Sanathan Textiles CFO eyes Rs 6,000 crore in revenue by FY27 driven by capacity expansions
3.Indian realty records $6.99 bn deals in FY25, Residential sales surge 77% since 2019
4.India needs $200 billion to achieve net-zero target; funding not a problem, say renewable energy industry CFOs
5.Sebi whole-time member flags 'valuation shopping', says it's time for valuers to make disclosures like credit rating firmsHappy Reading,Amol Dethe,
Editor,
ETCFO
(Editor's note is a column written by
Amol Dethe, Editor, ETCFO.
Click here to read more of his articles exploring several buzzing topics) 
