The Indian government has launched one of its most ambitious efforts to eradicate rural poverty.

Under the National Rural Guarantee Scheme one member from each of India's 60 million rural households is guaranteed 100 days of work each year.

They will receive a minimum wage of 60 rupees (1.35 US dollar) or an unemployment allowance if there is no work.

More than a third of India's population of more than one billion people lives on less than a dollar a day.

The first phase of the programme will cover 200 of the country's poorest and least developed districts.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched the scheme in a village in the drought-prone Anantapur district of southern Andhra Pradesh state by handing out job cards to five villagers.

"We must tirelessly work to ensure that the benefit of the scheme reaches needy people," the Press Trust of India quotes him as saying.

"The main focus of the scheme is the poorest of the poor."

The president of the governing Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, was also present and described the programme as "an important and a revolutionary step".

But she added: " Howsoever noble a scheme is... it will be of no use if it's not implemented with transparency and accountability."

The Congress Party swept to power in 2004 after it pledged to improve the conditions of India's poor.

Critics

The programme will be extended to the entire country over the next four years and is being seen as an important effort to curb the migration of villagers to India's overcrowded cities.

PHOTO CAPTION

Indian men look at planes taking off from the runaway adjoining hutments near the Mumbai airport January 30, 2006. (REUTERS)

BBC