With a more prosperous rural sector likely to boost and stabilise the economy and make it a more attractive destination for foreign capital, investors are awaiting a package of government reforms due soon.

Little has been done for the farm-dominated sector since the 1960s, when investment in irrigation and high-yielding seeds ended rice and wheat shortages.

The countryside has lagged urban India, which has thrived on 14 years of liberalisation that exposed industry to global competition.

Analysts say rural poverty has stymied broader growth and undermined efforts at luring job-creating foreign investments by constraining the growth of the market for goods and services in the world's second-most populous country.

Economic growth has averaged 6 percent a year since liberalisation reforms were started.

But farm output growth has averaged barely 3 percent and has fluctuated wildly because of India's reliance on capricious annual monsoon rains. Only a third of cultivated land is irrigated.