Vithal Sakharam Page (popularly known as V. S. Page) was a freedom fighter, philosopher, and former Chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council. He is world-renowned as the author of the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) and a pioneer who integrated labor-contractor cooperatives with rural public works.
- July 21, 1910 – March 16, 1990
- LL.B.: University of Bombay; practiced law before joining the Indian Independence movement.
- Place of Origin: Born in Bagani, Sangli district, Maharashtra.
- Founder Chairman of the Maharashtra Rajya Forest Labourers' Cooperative Federation
- Founder Architect of Labour Contract Cooperative Societies in Maharashtra
- Chairman of the Maharashtra Legislative Council (1960–1978)
- Labour-Contract Cooperatives: Established worker-owned labor cooperatives in the construction, forest, and public works sectors, ensuring landless rural laborers received fair wages directly from the state without contractor exploitation.
- EGS & Rural Credit Convergence: Designed the structural framework of the Employment Guarantee Scheme, combining rural manual labor with cooperative watershed management and soil conservation projects.
- Employment Guarantee Scheme and Rural Development
- Numerous essays on Gandhian economics, village self-sufficiency, and cooperative labor rights.
- Padma Bhushan (1990)
- Recognized nationally as the ideological architect of India's rural employment guarantee framework (which later informed the MGNREGA).