Apropos the article “Is NREGS stealing labour?” (June 20) and my letter “Promise vs practice (June 23), it should be noted that one of the vital goals of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is creating permanent assets that local people can use for decades. For example, water tanks with fruit trees on its banks and year-round farming on the sloping side as a part of watershed development on a massive scale under NREGS can make the brown country-side green as has been done by Israel in the desert. This is particularly important in the poorest (and Maoist-hit) undulating hilly regions of eastern India covering 22 districts of Jharkhand, 16 districts of Chattisgarh, three districts of MP, four districts of Maharashtra, 19 districts of Orissa and one district of West Bengal.
Alok Sarkar, Kolkata
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