Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) was launched in 1993 in 772 backward development blocks of the country and it was basically a rural wage employment programme. Mainly, it was focused on tribal, hilly, desert and drought prone regions. In 2001, it was merged into Jawahar Gram Samriddhi Yojana, and later, it was merged into Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana.