ABSTRACT:
Despite the most impressive improvement in conventional indicators of economic health of the nation post economic reforms such as the growth rates and per capita income, the same has not been translated to the performance and productivity of agricultural sector or the labour market indicators. Even among the labour market issues the case of casual labour in rural economy were not given due consideration. The article tries to answer why that has happened by revisiting the labour policy in India and critically analyze what has it offered to rural casual labour over the years? The article has been divided into four parts. The first part covers the introduction and motivation for the study, the second deals with the concept of labour policy, rural labour and review of literature, in the third section evolution of labour policy has been revisited, in the fourth section has a discussion of issues and challenges on rural labour policy in India and in the last section recent developments and conclusion have been highlighted followed by a conclusion.