DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2017.v05i08.024

Pages: 979-984

Unemployment, in the modern time, is considered as one of the unavoidable social evils for which no panacea exists. Workfare programmes are adopted and executed in various forms to provide social assistance to counteract it. There are a number of programmes implemented under different regimes to reduce the sufferings of the victimns. Mahatma Gandhi national Employment Guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) is often referred to as the biggest of one such programmes. Though the problem of unemployment and the impact of workfare and related policies are widely discussed, there is a lack of clarity in its definition and conceptual issues. This paper is an attempt to discuss the definition of unemployment and workfare. In the last part of the paper, an attempt is made to examine how far MGNREGS--often referred as world‘s largest workfare programme, can be treated as a workfare programme.