India’s Biggest Oil Retailers Are Focusing on Rural Revival
- State-run companies aim to open more stations in countryside
- Small towns, villages are emerging as centers for fuel demand
This article is for subscribers only.
If there’s one part of India’s economy that’s been relatively unscathed by the devastating impact of Covid-19 it’s the vast rural hinterlands. And the country’s biggest fuel retailers are sitting up and taking notice.
Stay-at-home orders first imposed from March last year had a disproportionate impact on India’s teeming cities, but in small towns and villages people mostly went about their business with fewer restrictions. A bumper agricultural crop and a splurge in government spending to pull the economy out of a slump is also expected to put more money into the hands of rural farmers and laborers.