Rural India is set to experience another wave of rural public works programmes (PWP). The major inspiration in this venture is 25-year-old Employment Guarantee Scheme of the government of Maharashtra (MEGS). Though various evaluations have been done on the MEGS, the principle of self-targeting, the hallmark of the MEGS and being adopted in the proposed all-India PWP, has not been critically evaluated. This article is bridging this gap, and suggesting some cautions in applying the principle of self-selection to the ‘un-free’ rural labour market of India. Based on data of ethnographic fieldwork of eight months in the region of Marathwada, the article identifies political constraints that exclude some villages from being included in the MEGS. Even when public works are in place in the villages, the local elite who have informal ownership of these projects could block the entry of some of the poorest households to these programmes. Such local elite in liaison with some ethnic groups could ‘reward’ works to them, and exclude some other groups. Besides, the poorest households, trapped in the tied-labour markets seasonally migrating to different districts, may easily fall out from the benefits of such self-targeting.
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