BHESDA KHURD, India — To begin to understand the hurdles Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces in building India into an economic powerhouse and reducing extreme poverty, the rural village of Bhesda Khurd, about 45 minutes from the western city of Udaipur, is a good place to start.

It is here where Rohit Nagda, a 29-year-old computer software engineer, lives with his wife, a would-be teacher studying for a master’s degree, and his family. Though he has a degree in computer science from a local university and spent a two-year stint as a commercial web developer that ended last year, Mr. Nagda is losing hope. He has been applying online for web jobs at companies in distant Mumbai, India’s financial center, but has yet to find work.

Seated next to him on a mat in front of the local Hindu temple was Shankar Donge, 26, who runs a small pharmacy near the Udaipur airport but would rather work for a big pharmaceutical company where the benefits are better. “To get a good job, you need to move out of the village, but it’s not talent that gets you big jobs but jack,” he says, meaning political influence or a bribe. He adds that “very often you have to pay people to make the call” just to get a job referral.

Two-thirds of India’s more than 1.2 billion people are under the age of 35. Nowhere is the demand for jobs more acute, and the obstacles more formidable, than in rural areas that are home to more than 70 percent of India’s population, including the 450 households in this village.