Earlier this year, the Indian government launched a bold, multi-million dollar scheme to tackle rural poverty. It guarantees 100 days work a year for every rural household. It's manual work at the minimum wage. Writes Jill McGivering, BBC.
Critics say corruption and bad governance mean it is unlikely to work. So two months after the launch, I travelled in northern India to see if it is working.
The northern state of Rajasthan is a barren land of dust and desert. But in some of its poorest villages the government's new rural employment guarantee scheme is bringing new life.
I came across more than 200 people from the small village of Samota, toiling together in the heat, carving out a village pond.
Everyone had a part to play. The women, decked out in brightly coloured saris, were carrying panniers of earth, balanced on their heads as they processed. The men swung their picks to dig into the rock-hard ground.
Each one of them was being paid a daily wage by the government for doing this - just over a dollar a day. It is modest but, for them, well worth the money.
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