Kurukshetra Magazine September 2023 - 4 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

 Page 1


55 Kurukshetra       September  2023
Amidst 
crisis at three 
different levels - health, 
economic and climate-change 
related, ‘vocal for local’ has 
emerged as a new course 
of development. A holistic 
and robust ‘vocal for local’ 
narrative could play a decisive 
role not only in strengthening 
rural India but also could feed 
into India’s journey towards 
the third largest economy in 
the world.
Partha Pratim Sahu
f late, the ‘vocal for local’ has become 
a focus of attention for policymakers, 
and India's policymaking is increasingly 
geared towards resuscitating economic growth and job 
creation through this strategy. Policies such as ‘Make 
in India’, ‘Start up India’, ‘Skill India’, ‘ease of doing 
business’, labour reforms, and so on are being initiated 
and adopted to boost the local or domestic economy. 
In addition to such efforts by the Central Government, 
individual states are also offering incentives and 
promotional measures towards a conducive investment 
climate to strengthen local economies. But there are 
many barriers to this goal, including a conventional 
O
set of constraints relating to skills, technology and 
innovation, finance, infrastructure, marketing, export, 
and so on. The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent 
intense and prolonged lockdown have accentuated the 
livelihood crisis in rural areas, which was already reeling 
with agrarian distress, declining female participation 
rates, rising youth and educated unemployment, and 
the disappearance of livelihood avenues. During this 
pandemic, we also saw millions of migrants walking 
back to their villages. However, these adversaries have 
reiterated the role and importance of family and the 
local economy. The rural households learned to design 
and adopt a variety of coping strategies in response 
The author is Associate Professor, Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Financial Inclusion (CEDFI) and Head-in-
charge, Centre for Good Governance and Policy Analysis (CGGPA), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati raj 
(NIRDPR), Hyderabad, India. Email: ppsahu.nird@gov.in
Leveraging Vocal for Local
Page 2


55 Kurukshetra       September  2023
Amidst 
crisis at three 
different levels - health, 
economic and climate-change 
related, ‘vocal for local’ has 
emerged as a new course 
of development. A holistic 
and robust ‘vocal for local’ 
narrative could play a decisive 
role not only in strengthening 
rural India but also could feed 
into India’s journey towards 
the third largest economy in 
the world.
Partha Pratim Sahu
f late, the ‘vocal for local’ has become 
a focus of attention for policymakers, 
and India's policymaking is increasingly 
geared towards resuscitating economic growth and job 
creation through this strategy. Policies such as ‘Make 
in India’, ‘Start up India’, ‘Skill India’, ‘ease of doing 
business’, labour reforms, and so on are being initiated 
and adopted to boost the local or domestic economy. 
In addition to such efforts by the Central Government, 
individual states are also offering incentives and 
promotional measures towards a conducive investment 
climate to strengthen local economies. But there are 
many barriers to this goal, including a conventional 
O
set of constraints relating to skills, technology and 
innovation, finance, infrastructure, marketing, export, 
and so on. The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent 
intense and prolonged lockdown have accentuated the 
livelihood crisis in rural areas, which was already reeling 
with agrarian distress, declining female participation 
rates, rising youth and educated unemployment, and 
the disappearance of livelihood avenues. During this 
pandemic, we also saw millions of migrants walking 
back to their villages. However, these adversaries have 
reiterated the role and importance of family and the 
local economy. The rural households learned to design 
and adopt a variety of coping strategies in response 
The author is Associate Professor, Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Financial Inclusion (CEDFI) and Head-in-
charge, Centre for Good Governance and Policy Analysis (CGGPA), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati raj 
(NIRDPR), Hyderabad, India. Email: ppsahu.nird@gov.in
Leveraging Vocal for Local
Kurukshetra       September  2023 56
to the pandemic. Local entrepreneurs, especially 
the women-led, household-based, and SHG-based 
enterprises emerged as a safety net for the family. 
In such testing times,‘vocal for local’ could be a key 
driver for a self-reliant India. It is time to build the 
local economy through the tools of micro and small 
enterprise and making Indian villages and small town 
thrive with entrepreneurial possibilities so that people 
can earn their livelihoods closure to their families and 
their communities.
The Rationale of Vocal for Local
The concept of ‘Vocal for Local’ saw a resurgence 
during a speech provided by our Hon’ble Prime 
Minister on 12 May 2020, which emphasised ‘Think 
Local Go Global’, self-sufficiency, and looking into our 
own neighbourhoods to create local goods with locally 
available resources. Of late, in the wake of pandemic-
led socio-economic crises, the term ‘vocal for local’ as 
an emerging development paradigm and a practice has 
gained currency in India’s development planning and 
policy. The five pillars of the Self-reliant India Movement 
were economy, infrastructure, governing system, 
vibrant demography, and supply chain. An attempt has 
been made by various stakeholders, including central 
and state governments, NGO, and the corporate sector, 
to formulate different policies and schemes envisaging 
‘vocal for local’ to address issues of rural transformation, 
inclusion, and steady recovery. The larger goals are to 
promote the development of rural areas in tune with 
Gandhi’s vision of being self-sufficient and self-reliant, 
based on local resources and using decentralized, 
eco-friendly technologies so that the basic needs of 
food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, health care, energy, 
livelihood, transportation, and education are locally 
met, and the goals of faster and more inclusive growth 
are realised. 
India’s emphasis on growth through exports 
is being bolstered by a focus on domestic demand 
and a reduction in its reliance on imports from other 
economies. India is also exploring ways to tap the 
potential of its huge domestic market, but it will not 
completely close itself off from the outside world. 
Therefore, a strategic balance needs to be maintained 
between self-reliance and opening up. India’s vocal for 
local strategy will reposition the production systems 
to focus more on demand at home than abroad. This 
strategy will flourish if both supply and demand, i.e., 
household income and consumption expenditure, 
get boosted. Because the recovery in consumption 
has lagged behind production amid job losses and 
economic uncertainties brought about by the pandemic 
and subsequent lockdown.
The ‘Vocal for Local’ strategy is not just about made 
in India but also about the promotion of local brands, 
manufacturing, and supply chains and making local 
products competitive vis-a-vis global brands. The basic 
ideas of this is to promote and support small firms with 
limited resources and markets. It was also envisaged 
that ‘Vocal for Local’ would sensitise Indians to building 
an appetite for consuming local products and goods. It 
can open plenty of opportunities for small industries, 
handicrafts, traditional artisans, SHG-based enterprises, 
and so on, which mainly operate on local resource 
availability combined with entrepreneurial skills and 
limited market coverage. Entrepreneurial initiatives 
such as dairy firms, food processing units, hotels and 
restaurants, bakeries, jewellery manufacturing units, 
packaging industries, horticulture, etc. can emerge 
from local resources where people do not require high 
skill, promotion, or pricing strategies. Such enterprises 
can expand and scale up by looking into the needs and 
demands of the local market and also the availability of 
local resources, i.e., physical, human, and natural. Small 
firms need to design products that are best suited for 
the local market. Effective use of local resources will 
help them fix a competitive price. Small firms also need 
to design their marketing and product distribution to 
attract customers to buy their products.
The strategy was also promoted to preserve several 
indigenous crafts and practices passed down across 
generations of artisan communities. Crafts and artisans 
are one of the critical components of the rural non-farm 
economy. However, the vast majority of artisans operate 
at subsistence level and in informal work settings. Under 
Atmanirbhar Bharat, with its focus on vocal for local 
and products to be made in India and their promotion, 
there are schemes and programmes by multiple central 
Page 3


55 Kurukshetra       September  2023
Amidst 
crisis at three 
different levels - health, 
economic and climate-change 
related, ‘vocal for local’ has 
emerged as a new course 
of development. A holistic 
and robust ‘vocal for local’ 
narrative could play a decisive 
role not only in strengthening 
rural India but also could feed 
into India’s journey towards 
the third largest economy in 
the world.
Partha Pratim Sahu
f late, the ‘vocal for local’ has become 
a focus of attention for policymakers, 
and India's policymaking is increasingly 
geared towards resuscitating economic growth and job 
creation through this strategy. Policies such as ‘Make 
in India’, ‘Start up India’, ‘Skill India’, ‘ease of doing 
business’, labour reforms, and so on are being initiated 
and adopted to boost the local or domestic economy. 
In addition to such efforts by the Central Government, 
individual states are also offering incentives and 
promotional measures towards a conducive investment 
climate to strengthen local economies. But there are 
many barriers to this goal, including a conventional 
O
set of constraints relating to skills, technology and 
innovation, finance, infrastructure, marketing, export, 
and so on. The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent 
intense and prolonged lockdown have accentuated the 
livelihood crisis in rural areas, which was already reeling 
with agrarian distress, declining female participation 
rates, rising youth and educated unemployment, and 
the disappearance of livelihood avenues. During this 
pandemic, we also saw millions of migrants walking 
back to their villages. However, these adversaries have 
reiterated the role and importance of family and the 
local economy. The rural households learned to design 
and adopt a variety of coping strategies in response 
The author is Associate Professor, Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Financial Inclusion (CEDFI) and Head-in-
charge, Centre for Good Governance and Policy Analysis (CGGPA), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati raj 
(NIRDPR), Hyderabad, India. Email: ppsahu.nird@gov.in
Leveraging Vocal for Local
Kurukshetra       September  2023 56
to the pandemic. Local entrepreneurs, especially 
the women-led, household-based, and SHG-based 
enterprises emerged as a safety net for the family. 
In such testing times,‘vocal for local’ could be a key 
driver for a self-reliant India. It is time to build the 
local economy through the tools of micro and small 
enterprise and making Indian villages and small town 
thrive with entrepreneurial possibilities so that people 
can earn their livelihoods closure to their families and 
their communities.
The Rationale of Vocal for Local
The concept of ‘Vocal for Local’ saw a resurgence 
during a speech provided by our Hon’ble Prime 
Minister on 12 May 2020, which emphasised ‘Think 
Local Go Global’, self-sufficiency, and looking into our 
own neighbourhoods to create local goods with locally 
available resources. Of late, in the wake of pandemic-
led socio-economic crises, the term ‘vocal for local’ as 
an emerging development paradigm and a practice has 
gained currency in India’s development planning and 
policy. The five pillars of the Self-reliant India Movement 
were economy, infrastructure, governing system, 
vibrant demography, and supply chain. An attempt has 
been made by various stakeholders, including central 
and state governments, NGO, and the corporate sector, 
to formulate different policies and schemes envisaging 
‘vocal for local’ to address issues of rural transformation, 
inclusion, and steady recovery. The larger goals are to 
promote the development of rural areas in tune with 
Gandhi’s vision of being self-sufficient and self-reliant, 
based on local resources and using decentralized, 
eco-friendly technologies so that the basic needs of 
food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, health care, energy, 
livelihood, transportation, and education are locally 
met, and the goals of faster and more inclusive growth 
are realised. 
India’s emphasis on growth through exports 
is being bolstered by a focus on domestic demand 
and a reduction in its reliance on imports from other 
economies. India is also exploring ways to tap the 
potential of its huge domestic market, but it will not 
completely close itself off from the outside world. 
Therefore, a strategic balance needs to be maintained 
between self-reliance and opening up. India’s vocal for 
local strategy will reposition the production systems 
to focus more on demand at home than abroad. This 
strategy will flourish if both supply and demand, i.e., 
household income and consumption expenditure, 
get boosted. Because the recovery in consumption 
has lagged behind production amid job losses and 
economic uncertainties brought about by the pandemic 
and subsequent lockdown.
The ‘Vocal for Local’ strategy is not just about made 
in India but also about the promotion of local brands, 
manufacturing, and supply chains and making local 
products competitive vis-a-vis global brands. The basic 
ideas of this is to promote and support small firms with 
limited resources and markets. It was also envisaged 
that ‘Vocal for Local’ would sensitise Indians to building 
an appetite for consuming local products and goods. It 
can open plenty of opportunities for small industries, 
handicrafts, traditional artisans, SHG-based enterprises, 
and so on, which mainly operate on local resource 
availability combined with entrepreneurial skills and 
limited market coverage. Entrepreneurial initiatives 
such as dairy firms, food processing units, hotels and 
restaurants, bakeries, jewellery manufacturing units, 
packaging industries, horticulture, etc. can emerge 
from local resources where people do not require high 
skill, promotion, or pricing strategies. Such enterprises 
can expand and scale up by looking into the needs and 
demands of the local market and also the availability of 
local resources, i.e., physical, human, and natural. Small 
firms need to design products that are best suited for 
the local market. Effective use of local resources will 
help them fix a competitive price. Small firms also need 
to design their marketing and product distribution to 
attract customers to buy their products.
The strategy was also promoted to preserve several 
indigenous crafts and practices passed down across 
generations of artisan communities. Crafts and artisans 
are one of the critical components of the rural non-farm 
economy. However, the vast majority of artisans operate 
at subsistence level and in informal work settings. Under 
Atmanirbhar Bharat, with its focus on vocal for local 
and products to be made in India and their promotion, 
there are schemes and programmes by multiple central 
57 Kurukshetra       September  2023
Government ministries. The Ministry of Textiles has 
launched an initiative to set up an e-commerce platform 
for artisans. The Ministry has tied up with India Post 
to leverage 4,00,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs), 
which have been primarily set up to offer government 
e-services in areas with limited availability of internet 
and computers, to enable artisans to go online with 
their products and become competitive.
Framework to leverage ‘Vocal for Local’
The ‘Vocal for Local’ strategy could be an important 
ingredient of rural development policy to create healthy, 
environmentally resilient, and economically robust 
places. A comprehensive profiling or mapping of local 
resources and demand and supply at the village level 
should be the starting point of this strategy. The local 
economy needs to be strengthened by: 
a)  efficient planning practices with strong 
coordination among various line departments 
working in the rural areas; 
b)  skill and economic development planning covering 
the issues and opportunities for strengthening the 
local economy; 
c)  aligning local plan with national and sub-national 
development strategy; 
d)  local institutions, such as panchayats in 
coordination with other stakeholders creating a 
system of visiting local businesses periodically to 
discuss their needs, challenges, and opportunities 
and also helping both aspiring and existing 
enterprises to get benefits from schemes and 
programmes.
Local institutions can also help these enterprises 
to participate in chamber of commerce and other local 
business organisations’ events to build connections with 
the business community for marketing and networking 
supports. Local institutions may also design contracting 
procedures, including incentives or requirements to buy 
local products and services. A local vendor programme 
can also be thought of to encourage and help local firms 
getting government contracts.
The Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) 
can play a direct role in identifying sectors, sub-sectors, 
and activities by their respective business potential and 
devise a mechanism to prioritise resource allocation, 
and helping those entrepreneurs and rural artisans who 
suffered varying degree of losses during the pandemic 
times. Special Gram Sabhas may be conducted to flag up 
and discuss issues of local entrepreneurs and artisans. 
The panchayat secretariat can play a role of ‘hyper 
local platform’ or a ‘point of contact’ by connecting 
these entrepreneurs with various government schemes 
and programmes, and also help them to get access to 
support measures available on IT-enabled portals or 
websites. Thus, the Gram Panchayat Development Plan 
(GPDP) could be truly an effective tool to mainstream 
entrepreneurship and livelihood challenges in the rural 
development strategies and overall economic policies. 
Thus the Panchayati raj institutions, being the last mile 
institutions can play a significant role, with support 
from various stakeholders, such as SRLMs, NGOs, CSR 
affiliates, and create an ecosystem for strengthening 
this strategy.
A robust convergence framework is required to 
accelerate ‘Vocal for Local’. For seeding and supporting 
local entrepreneurs, efforts need to be made so that 
these entrepreneurs get benefited from programmes of 
multiple ministries and departments such as MUDRA, 
PMFME, SFURTI, Van Dhan Vikas Kendra, One District 
One Product (ODOP), Cluster Development Programme 
(CDP), Common Facility Centres (CFCs), One Stop Facility 
Centre (OSFC), Producers Companies (PCs) and Farmer 
Producers Organizations (FPOs).In addition, a special 
package for traditional artisans and craftsmen under 
the PM Vishwa Karma Kaushal Samman was announced 
in the budget 2023-24 to integrate rural artisans with 
Page 4


55 Kurukshetra       September  2023
Amidst 
crisis at three 
different levels - health, 
economic and climate-change 
related, ‘vocal for local’ has 
emerged as a new course 
of development. A holistic 
and robust ‘vocal for local’ 
narrative could play a decisive 
role not only in strengthening 
rural India but also could feed 
into India’s journey towards 
the third largest economy in 
the world.
Partha Pratim Sahu
f late, the ‘vocal for local’ has become 
a focus of attention for policymakers, 
and India's policymaking is increasingly 
geared towards resuscitating economic growth and job 
creation through this strategy. Policies such as ‘Make 
in India’, ‘Start up India’, ‘Skill India’, ‘ease of doing 
business’, labour reforms, and so on are being initiated 
and adopted to boost the local or domestic economy. 
In addition to such efforts by the Central Government, 
individual states are also offering incentives and 
promotional measures towards a conducive investment 
climate to strengthen local economies. But there are 
many barriers to this goal, including a conventional 
O
set of constraints relating to skills, technology and 
innovation, finance, infrastructure, marketing, export, 
and so on. The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent 
intense and prolonged lockdown have accentuated the 
livelihood crisis in rural areas, which was already reeling 
with agrarian distress, declining female participation 
rates, rising youth and educated unemployment, and 
the disappearance of livelihood avenues. During this 
pandemic, we also saw millions of migrants walking 
back to their villages. However, these adversaries have 
reiterated the role and importance of family and the 
local economy. The rural households learned to design 
and adopt a variety of coping strategies in response 
The author is Associate Professor, Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Financial Inclusion (CEDFI) and Head-in-
charge, Centre for Good Governance and Policy Analysis (CGGPA), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati raj 
(NIRDPR), Hyderabad, India. Email: ppsahu.nird@gov.in
Leveraging Vocal for Local
Kurukshetra       September  2023 56
to the pandemic. Local entrepreneurs, especially 
the women-led, household-based, and SHG-based 
enterprises emerged as a safety net for the family. 
In such testing times,‘vocal for local’ could be a key 
driver for a self-reliant India. It is time to build the 
local economy through the tools of micro and small 
enterprise and making Indian villages and small town 
thrive with entrepreneurial possibilities so that people 
can earn their livelihoods closure to their families and 
their communities.
The Rationale of Vocal for Local
The concept of ‘Vocal for Local’ saw a resurgence 
during a speech provided by our Hon’ble Prime 
Minister on 12 May 2020, which emphasised ‘Think 
Local Go Global’, self-sufficiency, and looking into our 
own neighbourhoods to create local goods with locally 
available resources. Of late, in the wake of pandemic-
led socio-economic crises, the term ‘vocal for local’ as 
an emerging development paradigm and a practice has 
gained currency in India’s development planning and 
policy. The five pillars of the Self-reliant India Movement 
were economy, infrastructure, governing system, 
vibrant demography, and supply chain. An attempt has 
been made by various stakeholders, including central 
and state governments, NGO, and the corporate sector, 
to formulate different policies and schemes envisaging 
‘vocal for local’ to address issues of rural transformation, 
inclusion, and steady recovery. The larger goals are to 
promote the development of rural areas in tune with 
Gandhi’s vision of being self-sufficient and self-reliant, 
based on local resources and using decentralized, 
eco-friendly technologies so that the basic needs of 
food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, health care, energy, 
livelihood, transportation, and education are locally 
met, and the goals of faster and more inclusive growth 
are realised. 
India’s emphasis on growth through exports 
is being bolstered by a focus on domestic demand 
and a reduction in its reliance on imports from other 
economies. India is also exploring ways to tap the 
potential of its huge domestic market, but it will not 
completely close itself off from the outside world. 
Therefore, a strategic balance needs to be maintained 
between self-reliance and opening up. India’s vocal for 
local strategy will reposition the production systems 
to focus more on demand at home than abroad. This 
strategy will flourish if both supply and demand, i.e., 
household income and consumption expenditure, 
get boosted. Because the recovery in consumption 
has lagged behind production amid job losses and 
economic uncertainties brought about by the pandemic 
and subsequent lockdown.
The ‘Vocal for Local’ strategy is not just about made 
in India but also about the promotion of local brands, 
manufacturing, and supply chains and making local 
products competitive vis-a-vis global brands. The basic 
ideas of this is to promote and support small firms with 
limited resources and markets. It was also envisaged 
that ‘Vocal for Local’ would sensitise Indians to building 
an appetite for consuming local products and goods. It 
can open plenty of opportunities for small industries, 
handicrafts, traditional artisans, SHG-based enterprises, 
and so on, which mainly operate on local resource 
availability combined with entrepreneurial skills and 
limited market coverage. Entrepreneurial initiatives 
such as dairy firms, food processing units, hotels and 
restaurants, bakeries, jewellery manufacturing units, 
packaging industries, horticulture, etc. can emerge 
from local resources where people do not require high 
skill, promotion, or pricing strategies. Such enterprises 
can expand and scale up by looking into the needs and 
demands of the local market and also the availability of 
local resources, i.e., physical, human, and natural. Small 
firms need to design products that are best suited for 
the local market. Effective use of local resources will 
help them fix a competitive price. Small firms also need 
to design their marketing and product distribution to 
attract customers to buy their products.
The strategy was also promoted to preserve several 
indigenous crafts and practices passed down across 
generations of artisan communities. Crafts and artisans 
are one of the critical components of the rural non-farm 
economy. However, the vast majority of artisans operate 
at subsistence level and in informal work settings. Under 
Atmanirbhar Bharat, with its focus on vocal for local 
and products to be made in India and their promotion, 
there are schemes and programmes by multiple central 
57 Kurukshetra       September  2023
Government ministries. The Ministry of Textiles has 
launched an initiative to set up an e-commerce platform 
for artisans. The Ministry has tied up with India Post 
to leverage 4,00,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs), 
which have been primarily set up to offer government 
e-services in areas with limited availability of internet 
and computers, to enable artisans to go online with 
their products and become competitive.
Framework to leverage ‘Vocal for Local’
The ‘Vocal for Local’ strategy could be an important 
ingredient of rural development policy to create healthy, 
environmentally resilient, and economically robust 
places. A comprehensive profiling or mapping of local 
resources and demand and supply at the village level 
should be the starting point of this strategy. The local 
economy needs to be strengthened by: 
a)  efficient planning practices with strong 
coordination among various line departments 
working in the rural areas; 
b)  skill and economic development planning covering 
the issues and opportunities for strengthening the 
local economy; 
c)  aligning local plan with national and sub-national 
development strategy; 
d)  local institutions, such as panchayats in 
coordination with other stakeholders creating a 
system of visiting local businesses periodically to 
discuss their needs, challenges, and opportunities 
and also helping both aspiring and existing 
enterprises to get benefits from schemes and 
programmes.
Local institutions can also help these enterprises 
to participate in chamber of commerce and other local 
business organisations’ events to build connections with 
the business community for marketing and networking 
supports. Local institutions may also design contracting 
procedures, including incentives or requirements to buy 
local products and services. A local vendor programme 
can also be thought of to encourage and help local firms 
getting government contracts.
The Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) 
can play a direct role in identifying sectors, sub-sectors, 
and activities by their respective business potential and 
devise a mechanism to prioritise resource allocation, 
and helping those entrepreneurs and rural artisans who 
suffered varying degree of losses during the pandemic 
times. Special Gram Sabhas may be conducted to flag up 
and discuss issues of local entrepreneurs and artisans. 
The panchayat secretariat can play a role of ‘hyper 
local platform’ or a ‘point of contact’ by connecting 
these entrepreneurs with various government schemes 
and programmes, and also help them to get access to 
support measures available on IT-enabled portals or 
websites. Thus, the Gram Panchayat Development Plan 
(GPDP) could be truly an effective tool to mainstream 
entrepreneurship and livelihood challenges in the rural 
development strategies and overall economic policies. 
Thus the Panchayati raj institutions, being the last mile 
institutions can play a significant role, with support 
from various stakeholders, such as SRLMs, NGOs, CSR 
affiliates, and create an ecosystem for strengthening 
this strategy.
A robust convergence framework is required to 
accelerate ‘Vocal for Local’. For seeding and supporting 
local entrepreneurs, efforts need to be made so that 
these entrepreneurs get benefited from programmes of 
multiple ministries and departments such as MUDRA, 
PMFME, SFURTI, Van Dhan Vikas Kendra, One District 
One Product (ODOP), Cluster Development Programme 
(CDP), Common Facility Centres (CFCs), One Stop Facility 
Centre (OSFC), Producers Companies (PCs) and Farmer 
Producers Organizations (FPOs).In addition, a special 
package for traditional artisans and craftsmen under 
the PM Vishwa Karma Kaushal Samman was announced 
in the budget 2023-24 to integrate rural artisans with 
Kurukshetra       September  2023 58
the MSME value chain and enable them to improve 
quality, scale, and reach of their products. Hunar Haat, 
the Minority Affairs Ministry’s flagship initiative to 
encourage master artisans, is playing a phenomenal role 
in making ‘Vocal for Local’ campaign a mass movement. 
The Prime Minister in various episodes of Maan Ki Baat 
has shared stories of local entrepreneurs, which has 
also created a big impact on ‘vocal for local’. 
A wide network of extension machineries needs to 
be created to provide regular and continuous mentoring, 
handholding, and counselling. Local entrepreneurs 
need mentoring and handholding not only on business 
and technical skill but also to deal with various 
psychosocial problems. Mentoring and handholding 
services may include digitisation and formalisation, 
availing of government loans, subsidies, or other 
benefits, ensuring compliance with local, regional, and 
national regulation, aiding partnerships with digital 
marketing platforms and digital payment platforms, etc. 
We have a large cadre of Community Resource Persons 
(CRPs) such as Kisan Sakhi / Krishi Sakhi, Pasu Sakhi 
(Livestock CRP), Doctor Didi, NTFP CRP , Matsya Sakhi 
(Fisheries CRP), Udyog Sakhi (Value Chain CRP), CRP-
Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EP), Bank mitras, e-CRPs, 
Setu Didi (a change agent-bridging the gap between 
the services, service providers, and the beneficiaries 
and whose key responsibilities are making the benefits 
of government schemes and entitlements reach their 
intended beneficiaries), Tablet Didi, Patrakar didi, and 
so on, implementing rural development schemes and 
programmes. The success of the CRP-led mentorship 
model lies on the methodology and curriculum adopted 
for imparting training to these CRPs. There is a need 
to improve the training and capacity development of 
these CRPs with a regular interval to appraise them 
about changes in the policies and programmes, and also 
impart them new skills to facilitate them to implement 
both on-farm and non-farm livelihood programmes 
more effectively.
Local entrepreneurs are also to be aggressively 
sensitised about IT-enabled portals, e-commerce 
platforms, and other digital tools. Adequate funding 
along with training and capacity development of 
rural entrepreneurs to navigate smoothly to a digital 
ecosystem is required. Such digital services may also 
be provided in Common Service Centres, or Me Seva 
Centres, or in Panchayat offices. Panchayats should 
collaborate with other stakeholders, such as officials 
of SRLMs, MSME-Development Institutes, District 
Industries Centres (DICs), MSE Facilitation Councils 
(MSEFCs) operating in rural landscape to leverage 
on these digitisation efforts. It is also important to 
enhance the access to information and support for 
these enterprises, and provide all support measures on 
a single platform.
In order to become self-reliant, it is essential to 
concentrate on local business opportunities using 
local resources, for which providing skill orientation 
is the need of the hour to improve the quality of the 
products. The hesitation to buy local products among 
consumers and the preference for branded and quality 
products are changing very fast. Vocal for local does 
not mean not buying products that are manufactured 
in other countries or stopping imports but rather 
giving sufficient importance to the local markets and 
protecting our local economy in such a way that we 
can be self-sufficient. ‘Vocal for Local’ is an important 
component of ‘Make in India’ strategy, which is 
designed to facilitate investment, foster innovation, 
build best-in-class infrastructure, and make India a 
hub for manufacturing, design, and innovation. ‘Make 
in India’ also recognises ‘ease of doing business’as 
the single most important factor in promoting 
entrepreneurship.
Page 5


55 Kurukshetra       September  2023
Amidst 
crisis at three 
different levels - health, 
economic and climate-change 
related, ‘vocal for local’ has 
emerged as a new course 
of development. A holistic 
and robust ‘vocal for local’ 
narrative could play a decisive 
role not only in strengthening 
rural India but also could feed 
into India’s journey towards 
the third largest economy in 
the world.
Partha Pratim Sahu
f late, the ‘vocal for local’ has become 
a focus of attention for policymakers, 
and India's policymaking is increasingly 
geared towards resuscitating economic growth and job 
creation through this strategy. Policies such as ‘Make 
in India’, ‘Start up India’, ‘Skill India’, ‘ease of doing 
business’, labour reforms, and so on are being initiated 
and adopted to boost the local or domestic economy. 
In addition to such efforts by the Central Government, 
individual states are also offering incentives and 
promotional measures towards a conducive investment 
climate to strengthen local economies. But there are 
many barriers to this goal, including a conventional 
O
set of constraints relating to skills, technology and 
innovation, finance, infrastructure, marketing, export, 
and so on. The Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent 
intense and prolonged lockdown have accentuated the 
livelihood crisis in rural areas, which was already reeling 
with agrarian distress, declining female participation 
rates, rising youth and educated unemployment, and 
the disappearance of livelihood avenues. During this 
pandemic, we also saw millions of migrants walking 
back to their villages. However, these adversaries have 
reiterated the role and importance of family and the 
local economy. The rural households learned to design 
and adopt a variety of coping strategies in response 
The author is Associate Professor, Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Financial Inclusion (CEDFI) and Head-in-
charge, Centre for Good Governance and Policy Analysis (CGGPA), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati raj 
(NIRDPR), Hyderabad, India. Email: ppsahu.nird@gov.in
Leveraging Vocal for Local
Kurukshetra       September  2023 56
to the pandemic. Local entrepreneurs, especially 
the women-led, household-based, and SHG-based 
enterprises emerged as a safety net for the family. 
In such testing times,‘vocal for local’ could be a key 
driver for a self-reliant India. It is time to build the 
local economy through the tools of micro and small 
enterprise and making Indian villages and small town 
thrive with entrepreneurial possibilities so that people 
can earn their livelihoods closure to their families and 
their communities.
The Rationale of Vocal for Local
The concept of ‘Vocal for Local’ saw a resurgence 
during a speech provided by our Hon’ble Prime 
Minister on 12 May 2020, which emphasised ‘Think 
Local Go Global’, self-sufficiency, and looking into our 
own neighbourhoods to create local goods with locally 
available resources. Of late, in the wake of pandemic-
led socio-economic crises, the term ‘vocal for local’ as 
an emerging development paradigm and a practice has 
gained currency in India’s development planning and 
policy. The five pillars of the Self-reliant India Movement 
were economy, infrastructure, governing system, 
vibrant demography, and supply chain. An attempt has 
been made by various stakeholders, including central 
and state governments, NGO, and the corporate sector, 
to formulate different policies and schemes envisaging 
‘vocal for local’ to address issues of rural transformation, 
inclusion, and steady recovery. The larger goals are to 
promote the development of rural areas in tune with 
Gandhi’s vision of being self-sufficient and self-reliant, 
based on local resources and using decentralized, 
eco-friendly technologies so that the basic needs of 
food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, health care, energy, 
livelihood, transportation, and education are locally 
met, and the goals of faster and more inclusive growth 
are realised. 
India’s emphasis on growth through exports 
is being bolstered by a focus on domestic demand 
and a reduction in its reliance on imports from other 
economies. India is also exploring ways to tap the 
potential of its huge domestic market, but it will not 
completely close itself off from the outside world. 
Therefore, a strategic balance needs to be maintained 
between self-reliance and opening up. India’s vocal for 
local strategy will reposition the production systems 
to focus more on demand at home than abroad. This 
strategy will flourish if both supply and demand, i.e., 
household income and consumption expenditure, 
get boosted. Because the recovery in consumption 
has lagged behind production amid job losses and 
economic uncertainties brought about by the pandemic 
and subsequent lockdown.
The ‘Vocal for Local’ strategy is not just about made 
in India but also about the promotion of local brands, 
manufacturing, and supply chains and making local 
products competitive vis-a-vis global brands. The basic 
ideas of this is to promote and support small firms with 
limited resources and markets. It was also envisaged 
that ‘Vocal for Local’ would sensitise Indians to building 
an appetite for consuming local products and goods. It 
can open plenty of opportunities for small industries, 
handicrafts, traditional artisans, SHG-based enterprises, 
and so on, which mainly operate on local resource 
availability combined with entrepreneurial skills and 
limited market coverage. Entrepreneurial initiatives 
such as dairy firms, food processing units, hotels and 
restaurants, bakeries, jewellery manufacturing units, 
packaging industries, horticulture, etc. can emerge 
from local resources where people do not require high 
skill, promotion, or pricing strategies. Such enterprises 
can expand and scale up by looking into the needs and 
demands of the local market and also the availability of 
local resources, i.e., physical, human, and natural. Small 
firms need to design products that are best suited for 
the local market. Effective use of local resources will 
help them fix a competitive price. Small firms also need 
to design their marketing and product distribution to 
attract customers to buy their products.
The strategy was also promoted to preserve several 
indigenous crafts and practices passed down across 
generations of artisan communities. Crafts and artisans 
are one of the critical components of the rural non-farm 
economy. However, the vast majority of artisans operate 
at subsistence level and in informal work settings. Under 
Atmanirbhar Bharat, with its focus on vocal for local 
and products to be made in India and their promotion, 
there are schemes and programmes by multiple central 
57 Kurukshetra       September  2023
Government ministries. The Ministry of Textiles has 
launched an initiative to set up an e-commerce platform 
for artisans. The Ministry has tied up with India Post 
to leverage 4,00,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs), 
which have been primarily set up to offer government 
e-services in areas with limited availability of internet 
and computers, to enable artisans to go online with 
their products and become competitive.
Framework to leverage ‘Vocal for Local’
The ‘Vocal for Local’ strategy could be an important 
ingredient of rural development policy to create healthy, 
environmentally resilient, and economically robust 
places. A comprehensive profiling or mapping of local 
resources and demand and supply at the village level 
should be the starting point of this strategy. The local 
economy needs to be strengthened by: 
a)  efficient planning practices with strong 
coordination among various line departments 
working in the rural areas; 
b)  skill and economic development planning covering 
the issues and opportunities for strengthening the 
local economy; 
c)  aligning local plan with national and sub-national 
development strategy; 
d)  local institutions, such as panchayats in 
coordination with other stakeholders creating a 
system of visiting local businesses periodically to 
discuss their needs, challenges, and opportunities 
and also helping both aspiring and existing 
enterprises to get benefits from schemes and 
programmes.
Local institutions can also help these enterprises 
to participate in chamber of commerce and other local 
business organisations’ events to build connections with 
the business community for marketing and networking 
supports. Local institutions may also design contracting 
procedures, including incentives or requirements to buy 
local products and services. A local vendor programme 
can also be thought of to encourage and help local firms 
getting government contracts.
The Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) 
can play a direct role in identifying sectors, sub-sectors, 
and activities by their respective business potential and 
devise a mechanism to prioritise resource allocation, 
and helping those entrepreneurs and rural artisans who 
suffered varying degree of losses during the pandemic 
times. Special Gram Sabhas may be conducted to flag up 
and discuss issues of local entrepreneurs and artisans. 
The panchayat secretariat can play a role of ‘hyper 
local platform’ or a ‘point of contact’ by connecting 
these entrepreneurs with various government schemes 
and programmes, and also help them to get access to 
support measures available on IT-enabled portals or 
websites. Thus, the Gram Panchayat Development Plan 
(GPDP) could be truly an effective tool to mainstream 
entrepreneurship and livelihood challenges in the rural 
development strategies and overall economic policies. 
Thus the Panchayati raj institutions, being the last mile 
institutions can play a significant role, with support 
from various stakeholders, such as SRLMs, NGOs, CSR 
affiliates, and create an ecosystem for strengthening 
this strategy.
A robust convergence framework is required to 
accelerate ‘Vocal for Local’. For seeding and supporting 
local entrepreneurs, efforts need to be made so that 
these entrepreneurs get benefited from programmes of 
multiple ministries and departments such as MUDRA, 
PMFME, SFURTI, Van Dhan Vikas Kendra, One District 
One Product (ODOP), Cluster Development Programme 
(CDP), Common Facility Centres (CFCs), One Stop Facility 
Centre (OSFC), Producers Companies (PCs) and Farmer 
Producers Organizations (FPOs).In addition, a special 
package for traditional artisans and craftsmen under 
the PM Vishwa Karma Kaushal Samman was announced 
in the budget 2023-24 to integrate rural artisans with 
Kurukshetra       September  2023 58
the MSME value chain and enable them to improve 
quality, scale, and reach of their products. Hunar Haat, 
the Minority Affairs Ministry’s flagship initiative to 
encourage master artisans, is playing a phenomenal role 
in making ‘Vocal for Local’ campaign a mass movement. 
The Prime Minister in various episodes of Maan Ki Baat 
has shared stories of local entrepreneurs, which has 
also created a big impact on ‘vocal for local’. 
A wide network of extension machineries needs to 
be created to provide regular and continuous mentoring, 
handholding, and counselling. Local entrepreneurs 
need mentoring and handholding not only on business 
and technical skill but also to deal with various 
psychosocial problems. Mentoring and handholding 
services may include digitisation and formalisation, 
availing of government loans, subsidies, or other 
benefits, ensuring compliance with local, regional, and 
national regulation, aiding partnerships with digital 
marketing platforms and digital payment platforms, etc. 
We have a large cadre of Community Resource Persons 
(CRPs) such as Kisan Sakhi / Krishi Sakhi, Pasu Sakhi 
(Livestock CRP), Doctor Didi, NTFP CRP , Matsya Sakhi 
(Fisheries CRP), Udyog Sakhi (Value Chain CRP), CRP-
Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EP), Bank mitras, e-CRPs, 
Setu Didi (a change agent-bridging the gap between 
the services, service providers, and the beneficiaries 
and whose key responsibilities are making the benefits 
of government schemes and entitlements reach their 
intended beneficiaries), Tablet Didi, Patrakar didi, and 
so on, implementing rural development schemes and 
programmes. The success of the CRP-led mentorship 
model lies on the methodology and curriculum adopted 
for imparting training to these CRPs. There is a need 
to improve the training and capacity development of 
these CRPs with a regular interval to appraise them 
about changes in the policies and programmes, and also 
impart them new skills to facilitate them to implement 
both on-farm and non-farm livelihood programmes 
more effectively.
Local entrepreneurs are also to be aggressively 
sensitised about IT-enabled portals, e-commerce 
platforms, and other digital tools. Adequate funding 
along with training and capacity development of 
rural entrepreneurs to navigate smoothly to a digital 
ecosystem is required. Such digital services may also 
be provided in Common Service Centres, or Me Seva 
Centres, or in Panchayat offices. Panchayats should 
collaborate with other stakeholders, such as officials 
of SRLMs, MSME-Development Institutes, District 
Industries Centres (DICs), MSE Facilitation Councils 
(MSEFCs) operating in rural landscape to leverage 
on these digitisation efforts. It is also important to 
enhance the access to information and support for 
these enterprises, and provide all support measures on 
a single platform.
In order to become self-reliant, it is essential to 
concentrate on local business opportunities using 
local resources, for which providing skill orientation 
is the need of the hour to improve the quality of the 
products. The hesitation to buy local products among 
consumers and the preference for branded and quality 
products are changing very fast. Vocal for local does 
not mean not buying products that are manufactured 
in other countries or stopping imports but rather 
giving sufficient importance to the local markets and 
protecting our local economy in such a way that we 
can be self-sufficient. ‘Vocal for Local’ is an important 
component of ‘Make in India’ strategy, which is 
designed to facilitate investment, foster innovation, 
build best-in-class infrastructure, and make India a 
hub for manufacturing, design, and innovation. ‘Make 
in India’ also recognises ‘ease of doing business’as 
the single most important factor in promoting 
entrepreneurship.
59 Kurukshetra       September  2023
To conclude, the ‘Vocal for Local’ initiative 
has the potential to promote self-reliance,  
boost economic growth, create job 
opportunities, reduce dependence on imports, 
and provide a much-needed boost to small, 
micro, and SHG-based enterprises in the 
country. However, to leverage this strategy, we 
have to focus on: 
a)
b)
c)
e)
d)
f)
A robust mix of quality, innovation, 
and pricing; 
Preserve and promote local skills and 
products;
Generation of employment through 
localised manufacturing; 
Think local be global; and 
Establish reliable and independent 
sources of local raw materials; 
Usage of resources in a rational and 
integrated way.
References:
1. Sahu, Partha Pratim (2021), Developing Sustainable 
Rural Enterprise. Kurukshetra, July 21, pp. 37-42.
2. USEPA, (2015), Smart Growth Self-Assessment for 
Rural Communities, United States Environmental 
Protection Agency, Office of Sustainable 
Communities Smart Growth Program.
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