“Is rural India finally turning the corner? NABARD report provides an emphatic answer”, Open the magzine, december 11, 2025
“Rural India is quietly rebounding, and the numbers are stronger than anyone expected. For a year now, economists have been asking the same question: Is rural India finally turning the corner? NABARD’s latest Rural Economic Conditions and Sentiments Survey (RECSS) delivers the clearest answer yet. Across 12 months of high-frequency data, the survey finds a broad-based revival: rising consumption, improving incomes, stronger financial behaviour, and sharply higher optimism. This isn’t a blip. It’s a trend.
Nearly 80% of rural households reported higher consumption through the past year, the strongest and most consistent reading since the survey began. Crucially, this isn’t demand driven by inflation. It is powered by improved real purchasing power. Households now spend 67.3% of their monthly income on consumption—the highest share ever captured by RECSS—aided in part by GST rate rationalisation. The Ministry of Finance calls this “strong, broad-based demand not sporadic or concentrated in pockets.”
Incomes Are Rising Faster
The income picture is even more striking: Around 42.2% of households saw income growth, the highest across all RECSS rounds. Only 15.7% reported any decline, the lowest recorded. And a remarkable 75.9% expect income to rise next year–peak optimism since September 2024. For a sector often labelled sluggish, this is a decisive shift….”
Read full article at openthemagazine.com
