India's rural employment guarantee programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act has been ranked as the world's largest public works programme, providing social security net to almost 15 per cent of the country's population, World Bank has said.

India is among the five middle-income countries running the world's largest social safety net programmes, said a World Bank Group's report 'The State of Social Safety Nets 2015'.

"The world's five largest social safety net programmes are all in middle-income countries (China, India, South Africa and Ethiopia) and reach over 526 million people," it added.

The combined spending on social safety nets in 120 developing countries amounted to about US $329 billion between 2010 and 2014, it said. India's mid-day meal scheme has been classified as biggest school feeding programme benefiting 105 million beneficiaries.

The top honours for public works programme went to MNREGA with 182 million beneficiaries or 15 per cent of India's population.

The World Bank ranked the Janani Suraksha Yojna with 78 million beneficiaries as the top-most social security programme with conditional cash transfers. Also, it ranked the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme as the second-largest unconditional cash transfer social security progamme in the world.