Introduction:
The Government of India has initiated, sustained, and refined many programs since independence to help the rural poor in order to minimize unemployment and poverty in rural areas. The Government launched a number of programmes and schemes from time to time but they did not achieve the desired quantum and became ineffective. India has had a number of poverty alleviation programs since the independence. These include the ‘National Rural Employment Programme’ and the ‘Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Program’. The National Rural Employment Programme evolved in 1980 from the earlier ‘Food for Work Programme’ to use unemployed and underemployed workers to build productive community assets.