India needs greater decentralisation, which should involve giving more powers to panchayats and local bodies along with increased use of technology in the agricultural sector to improve rural wages, said S Mahendra Dev, chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), on Friday.

Speaking at the Rohini Nayyar Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Rural Development, Dev said that in many states across the country there is resistance to devolving powers to local councils. The levels of decentralisation in China and the US are much higher, he said.

Recalling Nayyar’s contribution in designing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme, Dev said that implementation of the scheme through panchayats not only helped lift wages but also bu

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