National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is primarily a programme aimed at creating public assets that would be useful for the society at large. When NREGA was created, it relaxed this principle by allowing projects in private lands of selected marginalised communities including SCs and STs. The Minister for Rural Development is now trying to extend this by permitting works in private lands owned by small and marginal farmers who are not SCs and STs. This proposal has been welcomed by some like Mihir Shah and has been sharply criticised by Aruna Roy and Jean Drèze among others. I believe […]