India expands anti-poverty drive

By Sanjoy Majumder
BBC News, Delhi

The government says it wants to make India more equal

An ambitious multi-billion dollar scheme aimed at lifting millions of Indians out of poverty has been extended across the whole of India.

It has gone ahead despite criticism that it has been a failure in many parts of the country and is a wasteful use of public money.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was launched in 2006 by the government in a third of the country.

Under it, every rural household was guaranteed 100 days of work each year.

Minimum wages

The scheme was described as a New Deal for India's poor, in a country where an estimated 220 to 280 million people live in abject poverty.

Aimed at 200 of India's poorest districts, it offered minimum wages for 100 days to each rural household to work towards building roads, small dams and other projects to improve the local infrastructure.

Not everyone has benefited from India's boom

India's Rural Development Ministry says in the past year more than 30 million rural households were given employment and on Tuesday, it was extended to cover the entire country.

But critics say that the scheme has been a failure in many of India's poorest states and has only succeeded in the country's better off states such as Gujarat.

They describe it is a colossal waste of public funds.

Over the next year, the government has set aside $4bn to pay for the scheme.

India's Congress-led government won national elections four years ago on a pledge to do more to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

With fresh polls due next year, many in government are concerned that time is running out for them.