Metro Shining

Recently my friend applied for a car loan. He is from a village in Karnataka and his parents own land and mango farms there. He lives in Chennai and works for an IT firm.

His loan application was rejected. That might come as a surprise to many of you considering the amount of spam calls you get from various banks. He wasn't given the loan because he didn't have residence proof. When he explained that he is actually not a native of Chennai, they asked him to add his father as a co-applicant. He travelled to his village, gathered the necessary documents, completed the formalities and submitted it back to the bank.

The loan is still not approved. The bank was confused about the fact that he is from a village. (I don't like using exclamations, but this statement deserves one) They don't have banking network in that place so they can't conduct the verification. It's been almost a month since he applied for the loan and is still waiting frustratingly.

That brings me to this thought. Aren't people in rural areas not eligible for loans? Recall those talks about loan formalities being made easy by the banks, hoardings screaming in your face about 'Spot Approval in Ten Minutes' and those endless, irritating phone calls you receive from the bank associates during month ends. They are perhaps only for the people living Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata. The multinational banks and the wannabe Indian private banks consider that a trainee programmer in an IT company is more imporant than a farmer owning mango farms. If you're from Nalgonda, Perumanam, or Athikunte, you are not eligible for any loans even if you own a house or farm or land there. All you need is a 650 sqft flat in Indira Nagar and it'll be valued more than two acres in Thenali.

So in a nutshell, the reforms and capitalization is not for the rural India. Those much debated and sought-after FDI inflows are meant only to populate the metros making them more affluent and in turn widening the chasm between the urban and rural India.

Sometime I wonder how is it that the rural India resists that terrible urge to revolt.