Letter to BS: Rural wage crisis is a persistent problem in the economy

All these had a spiralling effect on the rural wage-price inflation, according to the Reserve Bank of India discussion paper, that may be difficult to unravel without an appropriate policy push

Apropos “The rural wage crisis” (May 23), a persistent problem in the economy. We need to take into consideration certain fundamental and transitory factors behind this phenomenon. First, the agricultural real wage and construction (mason) real wage growth rate (about 14 per cent), as a proxy of non-agricultural wage, were showing an upward trend between 2007 and 2013. Both the real wage rates became negative from November 2014 and reached a low 3-4 per cent in 2017-18. We can recall that in 2014-15, food grain production was affected by a drought breakout, and low farm gate prices impacted the wholesale