The government on Tuesday took a major step to universalise implementation of the flagship programme of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in all 596 rural districts of the country. It assumes significance as the government is projecting it as an achievement in the run-up to the general election next year. Congress president Sonia Gandhi was instrumental in giving shape to the ambitious scheme as National Advisory Counil (NAC) chairperson, which seeks to provide 100 days of guaranteed employment as a right, during the lean season, when there are no agricultural operations. The idea of supplementing these lean 100 days is to ensure that the agricultural labour has gainful employment round the 365 days of an year. AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi had represented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sometime ago seeking extension of the scheme from the 330 districts to all the 596 rural districts. The NREGA, which was launched in Andhra Pradesh in February 2006 by the Congressled UPA government under its Bharat Nirman programme, is currently running in 330 districts of the country. Once it is extended to all the 596 rural districts, around 60 million households would benefit from the scheme. The NREGA is mainly aimed at helping over 22 per cent people living below poverty line in the country. In 2007-08, NREGA provided jobs to over 30 million households in 330 districts. It was launched in February 2006 in 200 districts and later extended to another 130 districts. Though often referred to as the first-of-its-kind in the country since Independence, where the poor are being offered work at such a largescale, NREGA has also been under constant scrutiny. According to Union rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, while the national average of the NREGA is encouraging, performance of some states was indeed disappointing.