Based on a recent visit to 40 worksites spread across five districts — Dindigul, Sivaganga, Tiruvannamalai, Cuddalore, and Villupuram — that have been implementing the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme since 2006, T. Ramakrishnan discusses a host of issues and challenges, ranging from the ‘adverse impact’ of the scheme on agriculture to the use of a mobile application to mark the attendance of workers and the changing profile of the projects