achieved only by expanding the scope for non-agricultural employment. Many programmes to generate additional employment had been introduced over the years. Many were merged with the employment guarantee scheme, which is now the biggest programme on this front in the country. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (subsequently renamed MGNREGA after Mahatma Gandhi) was passed in , with the aim of providing livelihood security to poor rural households.
This was to be achieved by giving at least days of wage employment each year to adult members of every household willing to do unskilled manual work. This would provide a cushion to poor rural households which could not get any work in the lean agricultural season which lasted for about three months each year. In this exercise, the work undertaken would create durable assets in rural areas like roads, canals, minor irrigation works and restoration of traditional water bodies. The earlier targeted programmes of rural development were based on the identification of below poverty line families, which had led to several complaints that ineligible families had been selected.
MGNREGA, however, is applicable to all rural households. The reasoning is that it is a self-targeting scheme, because persons with education or from more affluent backgrounds would not come forward to do manual work at minimum wages. The earlier employment generation programmes did not give the rural poor any right to demand and get work. The significant feature of this Act is that they have the legal right to demand work.
The programme is implemented by Gram Panchayats. The applicants have Envisioning a New Socio-Economic Order The most definitive policy statement was the Industrial Policy Resolution of which classified industries into three categories: Schedule A industries were under the monopoly of the state; Schedule B industries, the state could start new units but the private sector could also set up or expand their units; Schedule C were the remaining industries. The Industrial Development and Regulation Act of was an important instrument for controlling the private sector. This