While celebrating the success of schemes like the NREGA, the government must pause to examine its impact. The impact has been to raise agricultural wages to levels far in excess of what farmers can afford to pay for farm labour.
As a result of this, over a period of time, farmers will either stop growing crops on which the margins are very low or will try and mechanise more of their operations. This will result in lower farm output and, invariably, even lower job creation. So the NREGA is ending up hurting the segment it is trying to help.
Sanjay Doshi, Mumbai
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