The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is the first of its kind in the world wherein the government guarantees rights-based economic safety net for two-thirds of the country's population. This comprehensive book is an attempt to understand the working of the operational part of this act—the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS).

The expert contributors to this book have presented evidences of implementation and impact of the scheme across India, including both agriculturally developed states and the backward ones, and states where the scheme is better implemented as well as those where it is not. Their essays go on to explain the meaning, context, issues and development-policy implications of MGNREGS. In the process, these theoretical and empirical studies highlight the desirability of state-sponsored programme in the era of liberalization and provide viable answers to question pertaining to the timing and purpose as well as the likely impacts of such a massive wage employment and public works programme as the MGNREGS.

This volume offers an insight into the changing thrust of India's anti-poverty programme and her experiments with various employment schemes.