Towards true rural reform

As the root cause of rural distress is income deficit, enhancing incomes is key to reforms

If ever a system begged for reform, it would be village India. Reform is a different way of doing things, and not just more or less of something. Abandoning administered prices in favour of market-determined prices is reform, but not increasing or lowering government-controlled prices.

Since the root cause of rural distress is income deficit, enhancing incomes is the key to rural reforms. This does not mean that other concerns — health, education, communication, infrastructure — are not important. It simply asserts the primacy of incomes. Ask anyone to choose from a binary of income versus any of these