The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) came into existence after the enactment of the Parliament Act 'National Rural Employment Guarantee Act' (2005) in September 2005. The primary objective of the scheme is to provide 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The study was conducted in four states, viz., Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, as these are key states in terms of implementation of the scheme, besides being states with large rainfed areas.