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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Face the decline -Himanshu

Face the decline -Himanshu

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published Published on Oct 6, 2017   modified Modified on Oct 6, 2017
-The Indian Express

To suggest that demonetisation improved rural wages on the basis of rise in income of some workers is misleading. It halted the recovery of the rural economy, which had begun after the 2016 monsoon.

There is now a consensus that the economy has been slowing down and is headed for a hard landing. Many who matter have spoken out and as Yashwant Sinha points out (‘I need to speak up now’, IE, September 27) the rest are afraid to speak out for fear of retribution. But there are some who are still trying to spin half-truths as facts. Surjit Bhalla, who was recently appointed to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, seems to have suddenly discovered the data on rural wages and has found that demonetisation has contributed to rising rural wages (‘Data vs gossip: Who should win?’ IE, September 30). He has not only added to the long list of objectives of demonetisation (most of which remained unfulfilled) but has also credited demonetisation for rising wages. The claim is based on his analysis of rural wage data for two categories of workers, ploughmen and carpenters.

Bhalla is right as far as the data he has presented. The trick is not in what he has reported but what he has not. The rural wage data is from the monthly series of wage data from the Labour Bureau as part of the Wage Rates in Rural India (WRRI) series. The new series which starts from November 2013 has wage data pertaining to 12 agricultural occupations and 13 non-agricultural occupations. Among agricultural occupations, the category of general agricultural labourers (GAL) is the representative category of workers, whereas for non-agricultural occupations, the representative workers are the non-agricultural labourers (NAL) based on the employment share among all casual workers. What are the trends as far as wages of rural casual workers are concerned? The charts (How rural occupations have fared) give the real wages of ploughmen, GAL, carpenter and NAL since May 2014 when the Narendra Modi government assumed office. The nominal wages have been deflated by the Consumer Price Index-Rural (CPIR) with the base 2012=100. The clear trend from all the charts is that real wages in July 2017 have declined compared to May 2014 for ploughmen as well as NAL.

The only two categories where real wages have increased are GAL and carpenter, one of the categories picked up by Bhalla. But even for these two, the annual growth rate of wages in the last three years is 1 per cent. The wages of ploughmen and NAL declined by -0.8 per cent and -0.2 per cent per annum respectively. As against these, real wages increased in agricultural and non-agricultural occupations by more than 6 per cent and 7 per cent per annum respectively between 2008 and 2013. Clearly, the trend for real wages has been one of sharp deceleration for agricultural occupations and a sharper decline for non-agricultural occupations since May 2014.

By July 2016, real wages had declined for all occupations except for plantation workers compared to their level in May 2014. However, most wages start rising in July 2016 since it was the first good agricultural year after the back-to-back droughts of 2014 and 2015. The economic recovery in rural areas was also evident from other indicators of rural economy. It certainly preceded demonetisation. The trend of rising wages was largely a reflection of revival of rural demand due to a good monsoon after two years of drought and rural distress which was ignored by the Modi government.

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The Indian Express, 6 October, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/indian-economy-demonetisation-rural-wages-narendra-modi-4876356/


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