Millions in poverty grip : India's rural works programme

This is a book on the Indian experience in planning and execution of the rural works programme. There are mill ions of hunger-striken and asset-less men and women in rural India who can eke out a living only by offering their labour for a wage. They are the poorest among the poor and have neither land nor any skill worth the mention. The rural works programme, which is now termed as the national rural employment programme, not only provides employ ment to the large mass of the unemployed and the under employed but also helps strengthen the infra structure in rural India. The assumption of the earlier Indian planning that the projected prosperity in the country would trickle down right upto the lowest layer of the economic profile did not materialise and, therefore, the strategy of direct assault on the rural poverty had to be ado ted. The rural works programme is one of the manoeuvres of that stragety. The 'right to work' is en shrined in India's constitu tion and in the context of the burgeoning unemployment in the villages, the rural works programme brings succour to the millions in the grip of acute poverty.