As a response to crisis situation, developed and developing countries have used public employment programs based on labour intensive technologies. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), 2005, is the flagship program for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of India which was designed and implemented initially by the UPA Government. Apart from the advantages that accrue to the unemployed, under-employed and the poorly-employed, such programmes have a positive macroeconomic impact via increase in effective demand from the hitherto poor and vulnerable segments of the population. Keeping this in mind the book does an analysis of MGNREGS at national, Regional (Northern Eastern states) and state (Odisha) levels. The book starts with the issue of unemployment condition in India that necessitated welfare programmes like MGNREGS and ends with series of recommendations for further strengthening the programmes. This study attempts to draw lessons from the experience of those nine years for guiding the future course of MGNREGA and focuses on various aspects of performance of MGNREGA. The focus of analysis is based on MIS data, review of literature on MGNREGA and author?s experience with MGNREGA administration, by field visits, interaction with local people, attending several national workshops/ seminars. The remaining chapters are devoted to the critical examination of the programme. Besides looks at the issue of transparency and accountability, convergence measures for implementation. The findings of the research are substantially supported with figures and table which makes the book comprehensive. It is hoped that it will be a book of interest for the reader?s, planners and policy