The Indian Government has a number of schemes meant to alleviate poverty in rural areas but their success rate is very poor. A major reason for the low rate of employment Generation is the decline in the employment elasticity of agricultural growth. The late Rajeev Gandhi’s statement that only about 15 percent of money meant for the poor actually reaches them speaks volumes. To address the issue of unemployment various income generation schemes such as the Jawahar Rozgar Youjana(JRY), Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), Swarnajayanti Gram Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) and others were formulated. Creation of durable assets infrastructure at the village level, creation of productive assets exclusively for SC/ST for sustained employment and generation of supplementary employment for the unemployed poor living below poverty line were the objectives of these schemes. But all of them failed to make a lasting impact though the Indian Government had created labour-intensive rural work porgrammes. But these were not based on the Right to Work providing employment to the growing millions of unemployed which has to be stated to be the foremost national priority. Considering shortcomings of all previous programmes, the MGNREGA, one of the flag ship schemes of the Government was initially started in 200 villages in 2005 and expanded to cover all the 614 districts across the country. Since its inception, the program has benefited over 10 crore rural households.

KEYWORDS: agricultural growth, unemployment, workers, employment opportunities