The concept of 'empowerment' of the marginalisedpeople has acquired a new connotation in recent years among the social scientists, policy planners, development activists, and also among the educationists in the contexts of globalisation and paradigm shift in development strategy of the state on the one hand, and resurgence of grass-roots mobilisation and new collective identity formation of these groups on the,other. This concept has got a especial coinage in the vocabulary of the Non-Governmental Organization's (NGOs) activism, and has got patronage of various international bodies and donor agencies as catchword of emergent social development paradigm. In the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) establishments this concept is also frequently used especially in the context of the Open University's commitment for the educational well being of the marginalised people. However, the full meaning and ramifications of acceptance of this empowerment oriented educational strategy at the ODL, in the backdrop of stagnation of a vast mass of people in the abject poverty, illiteracy, ill-health, ignorance, unemployment, uncertainty, powerlessness, social segregation and resurgence of the culture of resistance of the marginalised people, have yet to be thoroughly examined. In this given scenario this paper proposes to examine: the criticality of the notion of empowerment especially in the context of the realities of the lives of the marginalised, role of knowledge in the dynamics of empowerment of the marginalised, and finally the problems and prospects of constructing praxis for empowerment of the marginalised by generating an alternative body of knowledge at the ODL.