The paper is an attempt to assess the extent to which these various elements find place in development strategies and Global Employment Agenda policies in India, what progress has been made in the attainment of the goals that are implied in the Agenda and its elements, what are the gaps and emerging challenges in respect of each of them. It also highlights the efforts that are under way, if any, from a historical perspective and notes what conditions and institutional arrangements are further required to meet them. In this context, the author notes the poor quality of employment of the vast majority in India, especially in the informal economy, and analyses the evolving strategy for poverty alleviation through employment generation. He examines the poverty-employment nexus through distribution of the poor by their work status and reasons for poverty. He finds that the incidence of poverty is higher among the employed than the unemployed. The paper argues for the need to document the status of the qualitative dimensions of work in different sectors and estimate deficits of Decent Work to work out strategies and programmes for improvement of quality of work in various sectors and activities.