INTRODUCTION Labor is the key factor for the growth of any economy and is of particular importance in developing economies as these economies primarily depend on human force for development. Therefore, the growth by way of gainful employment of the labor is essential for the sustainable development. India is no exception to this phenomenon. The annual growth of labor force at 2.5 per cent has outpaced that of employment at 2.3 per cent in India. This, coupled with the backlog of unemployed, is a major cause of concern for the planners. The unemployment rate in the country increased from 8.35 to 9.22 per cent during 1973 to Current Agriculture Research Journal Vol. 1(1), 13-28 (2013) Impact of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India on Rural Poverty and Food Security K. KAREEMULLA 1 , P.RAMASUNDARAM 2 , SHALANDER KUMAR 3 and C.A. RAMA RAO 4 1 National Academy of Agricultural Research Management, Hyderabad - 500 030, India. 2 National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi, India. 3 Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur, India. 4 Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad, India. (Received: April 04, 2013; Accepted: May 17, 2013) ABSTRACT A study based on regional and micro level household data was taken up to inquire in to the impacts of a national rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGS) in India. Studies in four sample districts in predominantly rainfed areas, which benefited from the scheme for the last six years indicated that the scheme attempted to address the core issue of rural unemployment of unskilled labor in earth works related to natural resource management. Primarily the rural labor obtained seasonal employment, but the resource poor farmers also participated in the Scheme more so in states like Maharashtra. The study findings indicated that the seasonal migration of rural labor has come down significantly due to the opportunities of employment provided under the scheme. The share of NREGS employment was up to one-third of wage days in some of the study districts. Similarly the contributions of income to the family from the wages of participation in the scheme were in the range of 12 to 33 per cent across the districts. These additional incomes were used by the rural households primarily for food security, education of dependents, health care and debt repayment. Wherever, the there were surpluses beyond these expenses, the households acquired durable assets and created amenities in the households. The negative fall out of the Scheme, albeit at a low scale, especially from the farming point of view is that there was abnormal rise in the wage rates. The scheme thus is a revolutionary one with broad spectrum impact on the rural milieu of India. Key words: Food security, Employment guarantee scheme, income, labor, migration, poverty, wages 1983; later decreased to 6.06 by 1993 and again increased to 8.28 per cent in 2005 (Planning Commission, 2011). There was increase in the unemployment rate at the country level especially among female youth during the period 1999-2000 to 2004-2005 (Table 1). At the same time, in states like Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, the female unemployment rate has come down during this period. This could be partly attributed to the growth of community institutions like self-help groups (SHGs) in these states with as high as 30 percent households being part of the SHG movement in states like Andhra Pradesh (Fouillet and Augsberg, 2007; Fernandez, 2007). Other reasons include relatively higher female literacy in Maharashtra (65