(Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh officially launched what he called a "landmark" anti-poverty plan that promises 100 days of work a year to every rural family in the country. Photo: AFP)

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh officially launched what he called a "landmark" anti-poverty plan that promises 100 days of work a year to every rural family in the country.

"The main focus of the scheme is the poorest of the poor," Singh said, calling the initiative "revolutionary".

"This will be a landmark in our history, removing poverty from the face of our nation," he said on television as he launched the programme in remote Bandlapally in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday.

Under the plan, one member of every rural household will get 100 days of work a year in such sectors as water conservation, irrigation and road construction.

The scheme, initially being rolled out in one-third of India's 600 districts, is expected to cost around 11 billion dollars when it takes full effect within the next four years.

The programme is part of the Congress-led coalition government's bid to help the rural poor who helped power it to a surprise electoral victory in May 2004.

Congress campaigned on a platform of economic reform with a "human face".

"We must tirelessly work to ensure that the benefit of the scheme reaches to the needy people," the prime minister said.

Singh has called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which was passed by parliament last year, the "biggest" achievement of his 20-month-old government.

Around six out of 10 Indians live in rural areas where abject poverty is widespread.

Critics say the jobs plan will put pressure on the cash-strapped government's finances and widen the country's combined central and state government deficit which at over nine percent is one of the world's highest.

States will be responsible for 10 percent of the funding for the jobs plan.

But the government has said it plans to fund the initiative by combining other rural welfare schemes and cutting costs on other programmes.

The government has said the aim of the plan is to bring all Indians above the poverty line. An estimated one-quarter of India's 1.1 billion population live on less than one dollar a day, despite economic growth of eight percent.

(Source: AFP)