From Right to Rationed Work: The Unmaking of MGNREGA
Summary
The proposed Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025 represents a decisive shift in India’s rural employment architecture. While projected as an expansion of employment guarantees through increased workdays and infrastructure creation, the Bill fundamentally alters the rights-based framework of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005. This paper critically examines the fiscal, economic, and administrative restructuring embedded in the Bill, arguing that the transition from a demand-driven, centrally funded statutory right to a normatively allocated, cost-shared mission effectively dismantles the legal guarantee of employment. Through historical comparison with pre-MGNREGA schemes, the analysis demonstrates that VB-G RAM G reintroduces the structural limitations that earlier employment programmes failed to overcome—budget caps, centralized control, and weakened accountability. The study concludes that the Bill marks a regression from social citizenship to discretionary welfare, with significant implications for livelihood security, decentralisation, and labour rights in rural India.
This table provides a final comparative overview, summarizing the three key areas of dilution—Fiscal, Economic (Livelihood Security), and Administrative (Decentralization)—that distinguish the proposed VB-G RAM G Bill from the statutory framework of the original MGNREGA.
Dilution Area | MGNREGA (Original Act) | VB-G RAM G (Proposed Bill) | Impact of Dilution |
1. Fiscal & Fund Allocation |
|
| Shifts financial burden and destroys the legal guarantee. |
Funding Model | 100% Central Government funding for unskilled wage costs. | Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) with a 60:40 Centre-State sharing ratio (for non-NE/Himalayan states). | Transfers an estimated Rs.55,000 crore annual liability to states, forcing them to restrict work or divert state budgets. |
Allocation Mechanism | Demand-Driven (Open-ended Labour Budget). Centre is legally obligated to fund all valid demand. | Normative Allocation (Budget-Capped). Funds are pre-fixed based on performance/strategic goals. | Repeals the Statutory Right to Work. The guarantee is contingent on the Centre's budget ceiling, transforming the 'Right' into a 'Discretionary Assurance.' |
2. Economic & Livelihood Security |
|
| Interrupts income flow and lowers real wages. |
Work Period | Year-round, no provision for mandatory pause; designed to be a continuous safety net. | Allows states to mandate a 60-day 'no work period' during peak agricultural seasons. | Legally deprives the poorest (landless/tribal) of guaranteed income for two critical months, weakening its function as a safety net and restoring bargaining power to farm owners. |
Wage Rate | State-specific wages linked to CPI-AL; intended to converge with local minimum wages. | Standard national floor wage of {Rs.240. | In high-wage states (e.g., Kerala, Haryana, Goa), this decreases real wages by up to Rs.91, reducing the incentive for labour and undermining the goal of wage convergence. |
3. Administrative & Decentralization |
|
| Centralizes control and risks digital exclusion. |
Work Planning Focus | Broad categories, driven by Gram Panchayat (GP) demand and local needs; priority to water conservation. | Focused on Four Strategic Infrastructure Verticals aligned with the 'Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack.' | Erodes GP autonomy. GPs are reduced to implementers of centrally-defined strategic projects, rather than planners of localized, demand-based assets. |
Accountability & Monitoring | Mandatory Social Audits by Gram Sabhas (people's verification); paper-based records, MIS. | Mandatory use of AI Fraud Detection, GPS Monitoring, and AEPS. Emphasis on digital disclosure. | While fighting corruption, reliance on tech risks digital exclusion of remote workers due to connectivity issues, biometric failure, or opaque AI flagging, replacing human verification with automated control. |
The transition from the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA to the proposed VB-G RAM G thus represents a shift from a social safety net focused on income guarantee to a centrally-controlled, outcome-oriented infrastructure mission.
The proposed Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025 is far from a simple bureaucratic upgrade; it is a meticulously calculated move to structurally dismantle the unique features of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005. The debate is a collision between the foundational principle of a Statutory Right to Work (MGNREGA) and the new approach of a Centrally Controlled, Outcome-Oriented Mission (VB-G RAM G).
This detailed analysis sequences the arguments for dilution, incorporating the original data and placing the overhaul within its historical context and political storm.
The Historical Trajectory of Rural Employment Schemes
The passage of MGNREGA in 2005 was not a sudden event, but the culmination of five decades of failed attempts to provide sustained rural employment. These earlier schemes were generally budget-constrained, top-down welfare programs that lacked the legal enforceability of a statutory right.
1. The Early Years (1960s–1970s): Ad-Hoc Relief and Experiments
Scheme | Period | Core Focus & Limitation |
1960s | Aimed at creating local assets; suffered from poor planning and insufficient funds. | |
Crash Scheme for Rural Employment (CSRE) | 1971–74 | Designed to provide quick relief employment and infrastructure; ad-hoc and stopped once the 'crash' period was over. |
Food for Work Programme (FWP) | 1977 | Wages paid partly in food grains; highly successful in parts, but its sustainability was tied to grain stock and it remained a relief-focused scheme. |
1970s (State Act) | Pioneered the 'guarantee' concept, serving as the blueprint for MGNREGA, but its success was regional and state-specific. |
2. The Consolidation Phase (1980s–Early 2000s): Integration and Structural Failures
The 1980s saw schemes being merged to achieve scale, but their fundamental design flaws persisted.
A. The Mega-Schemes: NREP & RLEGP
National Rural Employment Programme (NREP, 1980): Focused on creating durable community assets.1
Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP, 1983): Specifically targeted the landless.
Limitation: These were centrally-driven, leading to massive leakage, poor asset quality, and limited local ownership. The benefits failed to reach the most marginalized.
B. The Culmination: Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) & its Descendants
In 1989, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) integrated NREP and RLEGP, marking a political attempt to scale rural employment.2 It was later revamped into the Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY, 1999) and then the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY, 2001).
The Failure of JRY and SGRY (The Pre-MGNREGA Model) |
1. Allocation vs. Demand: JRY was funded on a fixed allocation basis, determined centrally. This meant the employment provided was capped by the budget, not by the actual demand of the poor. |
2. Negligible Employment Generation: Government studies revealed that JRY failed spectacularly in its core mandate. In many areas, it provided less than 10 days of work annually per household, despite its name implying 'Assurance.' |
3. Corruption & Leakage: Accountability was poor. Corruption shifted from the bureaucratic-contractor nexus to the Sarpanch-contractor nexus after decentralization, resulting in the creation of non-productive assets (like school boundary walls) that served political interests more than the community's needs. |
4. Exclusion: Women's participation under JRY was dismally low, often falling below 18% (compared to nearly 50% under MGNREGA). The benefits remained concentrated among local elites. |
3. The Rights Revolution: MGNREGA's Response
The catastrophic failures of JRY and SGRY (in generating work, controlling corruption, and targeting the needy) demonstrated that a successful program could not be a discretionary welfare scheme.
MGNREGA flipped the model:
Characteristic | Pre-MGNREGA Schemes (JRY, SGRY) | MGNREGA (2005) |
Legal Status | Discretionary Welfare Programme | Statutory Right (Enforceable by law) |
Funding Model | Fixed Allocation-based (Budget-Capped) | Demand-Driven (Open-ended Labour Budget) |
Locus of Control | Central/State Bureaucracy (Top-Down) | Gram Panchayat (Bottom-Up) |
Consequence of Failure | No work = No consequence for the State | No work within 15 days = Unemployment Allowance (State must pay) |
The new VB-G RAM G Bill's move back to a Normative Allocation and 60:40 Centre-State sharing is seen by critics as a regression to the failed, fiscally-constrained model of JRY and its descendants.4
Part I: The Architectural Shift – Diluting the Statutory Soul
The core dilution rests on altering the scheme's funding mechanism and allocation model, transforming an obligation into a condition-based grant.
1. The Death of Demand-Driven Funding and the Right to Work
MGNREGA was a paradigm shift because its funding model was open-ended and demand-driven. The Central Government was legally obliged to fund the entire cost of unskilled wages for all valid work demanded within 15 days, ensuring the 'Right to Work' was enforceable and not constrained by the Union Budget.
The VB-G RAM G Bill replaces this with:
Normative Allocation (Budget Cap): The Centre shifts to a pre-fixed fund ceiling based on objective norms (e.g., performance, achievement of strategic goals). This caps the Centre's liability, meaning if state demand exceeds the "normative allocation," the statutory guarantee is functionally nullified. The guarantee of 125 days becomes a hollow promise dependent on the Centre's political will and the state's fiscal capacity.
The End of Entitlement: As critics point out, this effectively repeals the statutory right. The scheme reverts to resembling earlier budget-constrained programs like the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY), which often provided less than 10 days of work annually in most areas despite being named an "employment assurance" scheme.
Key Differences and the Issue of Dilution
Feature | MGNREGA (Current Act) | VB-G RAM G Bill, 2025 (Proposed) | Critical Contrast |
Legal Status & Funding | 100% Central Government Funded (Labour Cost) - Purely central scheme. | Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) with 60:40 Centre-State sharing for most states (90:10 for NE/Himalayan states). | Shifts financial burden to states, diluting the legal entitlement by making its execution financially dependent on state budgets. |
Fund Allocation Model | Demand-Driven (Open-ended "Labour Budget")—Centre is legally obliged to fund all valid demand. | Normative Allocation (Budget-Capped)—Uses pre-defined norms (performance, goals) to allocate funds, potentially capping the Centre's liability. | Weakens the 'Right to Work' as a statutory entitlement, converting it into a discretionary, budget-capped scheme. |
Guaranteed Work Days | 100 days per rural household per year. | 125 days per rural household per year. | The increase to 125 days is seen as a hollow promise if the funding model is restrictive and capped. |
2. The Financial Weapon: Transferring Liability to States
The shift from 100% central funding for unskilled wages to a 60:40 Centre-State sharing pattern (for non-special category states) is the primary fiscal dilution.
Government's Justification: The government argues this corrects the "moral hazard" created by 100 % central funding, which allegedly led to corruption, misuse, and a lack of state ownership (as highlighted in CAG reports). The 40 % state share aims to incentivize scrutiny and fiscal vigilance.
Critic's Response (Fiscal Constraint): This immediately transfers a massive and unbudgeted liability onto the states, estimated at nearly Rs. 55,000 crores annually. States, already facing resource constraints, will be forced to choose between:
Limiting Work Provision: Capping the work offered to stay within their $60\%$ central allocation plus their 40 % liability.
Diverting State Funds: Prioritizing the 40 % share over other state development projects.
Political Consequence: This creates a financial chokehold. Opposition-ruled states (e.g., Kerala, Tamil Nadu) argue they will be fiscally punished because the Centre can restrict funds based on arbitrary "normative" parameters, making the scheme a political tool rather than a social safety net.
Political Reaction to the 60:40 Funding Shift |
The most vocal protests against the proposed shift from 100% Central funding (for wages) to a 60:40 Centre-State sharing have come from states governed by opposition parties, such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana. |
Kerala: Alleged the 60:40 formula would result in a "significant reduction" in the union budget allocation, leading to an additional financial burden of Rs.2,000 to Rs.2,500 crore annually. |
Tamil Nadu: Charged that the state, successful in poverty alleviation, might receive fewer benefits because the normative allocation system is likely to use parameters that disadvantage high-performing or "richer" states. |
TDP (NDA Ally): Even a senior minister from the ruling alliance partner flagged the new funding pattern as a matter of "great concern" for a cash-strapped state. |
Part II: Undermining Livelihood Security and Decentralization
The specific clauses related to work management and wages further undermine the scheme's role as an unconditional safety net for the most vulnerable.
3. The Seasonal Pause and Labour Market Interference
The provision allowing states to mandate a compulsory 60-day 'no work period' during peak sowing and harvesting is the most direct intervention in the rural labour market.
Government's Justification: To ensure Agricultural Labour Availability by preventing MGNREGA from drawing workers away from farms during critical seasons and thus preventing upward pressure on rural wages.
Impact on the Poor (Livelihood Disruption): This provision legally deprives workers of guaranteed employment for at least two months. For landless labourers and tribal communities who rely on MGNREGA income to smooth consumption during peak seasons (when agricultural work is erratic or low-paying), this creates a significant economic vulnerability, defeating the purpose of an income safety net. The scheme is now restricted to the lean agricultural season, making it a seasonal welfare scheme, not an unconditional right.
The impact is particularly severe on women, who consistently showed high participation rates (47%) under MGNREGA and rely on it for income stability.
4. The Ambiguous Wage Hike – A Decrease in Real Wages
The VB-G RAM G proposes a new standard floor wage of Rs.240, an increase over the Rs.205 base mentioned in the introductory text. However, this non-indexed national floor would be significantly lower than the wages currently paid in the most progressive states, effectively reducing real wages.
State/UT | Current MGNREGA Wage (2022) (Rs.) | Proposed VB-G RAM G Wage (Rs.) | Difference (Current - Proposed) (Rs.) | Status of Proposed Wage |
All India Average | Varies | 240 | - | New Floor |
Goa | 315 | 240 | -75 | Significantly Lower |
Haryana | 331 | 240 | -91 | Significantly Lower |
Kerala | 311 | 240 | -71 | Significantly Lower |
Karnataka | 309 | 240 | -69 | Significantly Lower |
Rajasthan | 231 | 240 | +9 | Slightly Higher |
If the Rs.240 becomes a non-indexed standard, it would:
1. Reduce Real Wages in high-wage states, diminishing the incentive for workers to participate.
2. Exacerbate the Gap between MGNREGA wages and the actual Minimum Wages Act rates.
3. Hinder Convergence with local market wages, a key social benefit of the original MGNREGA.
5. Centralized Work Focus and the Erosion of Gram Panchayat Power
MGNREGA was a pillar of Decentralization (Article 40/73rd Amendment), with Gram Panchayats central to work planning, demand generation, and implementation.
The VB-G RAM G Bill shifts the focus to four strategic infrastructure verticals aligned with the 'Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack.'
While promoting 'durable asset creation' is a valid goal, this centralizes control over the type and location of work, potentially bypassing the decentralized planning authority of Gram Panchayats, whose role is reduced to merely implementing pre-defined national strategic works.
Part III: The Political Storm and Historical Precedent
The ideological components of the dilution and the political reaction are integral to the controversy.
6. The Political Symbolism: Erasing Mahatma Gandhi’s Name
The political uproar over the removal of Mahatma Gandhi's name is seen by the opposition as a symbolic attempt to erase the legacy of a UPA-era flagship program and, more importantly, to remove the name of the Father of the Nation from a law dedicated to his vision of Gram Swaraj (village self-rule).
Opposition's View: Leaders allege this is a "hollow and hypocritical" gesture, contrasting the removal with the government's symbolic homage to Gandhi. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor argued that the new name, alluding to 'Ram,' ignores Gandhi's own deep-seated faith which saw 'Ram' and 'Gram Swaraj' as complementary ideals, not competing forces.
Government's Justification: The stated intent is to overhaul the law and align it with the vision of 'Viksit Bharat@2047', emphasizing growth and convergence.
The History of Rural Employment Schemes Post-Independence
MGNREGA was the culmination of a half-century of fragmented, ad-hoc programs. The new bill risks taking India backward to the limitations of these pre-entitlement schemes:
Era | Scheme/Programme | Key Feature |
1960s-1970s | Rural Manpower Programme, Crash Scheme for Rural Employment (CSRE), Food for Work Programme (FWP) | Ad-hoc, often sporadic, focused on relief. Wages often paid in food grains. Exposed issues in financial management. |
1980s | National Rural Employment Programme (NREP), Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP) | Attempted more structure and durable asset creation. |
1989 | Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) | Integrated NREP & RLEGP; introduced decentralization via PRIs. Was budget-capped and allocation-based. |
2005 | MGNREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) | Statutory Right to Work (100 days); 100% central funding for wages; Demand-Driven; Decentralized implementation through Gram Panchayats. |
The move from MGNREGA to VB-G RAM G effectively reverses the historical transition from discretionary welfare programs (like JRY, which failed to meet the majority of employment demand) back to a fiscally constrained, allocation-based model.
Summary and Conclusive Dilution
The VB-G RAM G Bill is a calculated systemic dilution of MGNREGA. While the increase to 125 days is an apparent improvement, it is rendered meaningless by the structural changes:
1. Fiscal Dilution: Replacing 100% central liability with 60:40 sharing, financially empowering the Centre and constraining the states.
2. Structural Dilution: Replacing the Demand-Driven model with a Normative (Capped) Allocation, destroying the statutory right to work.
3. Livelihood Dilution: Introducing a 60-day mandatory seasonal pause, disrupting the core function of income smoothing for the rural poor.
4. Wage Dilution: Proposing a new floor wage (Rs. 240) that is lower than current real wages in several high-demand states.
The end result is a scheme stripped of its most critical mandatory provisions, replacing a rights-based safety net with a conditional, centrally-managed, and outcome-focused development project.
Analysis of the Potential Economic Impact of the 60-Day Seasonal Pause
The most controversial operational change in the VB-G RAM G Bill is the provision allowing States to notify a 60-day period during peak agricultural seasons (sowing and harvesting) when no work will be guaranteed.5
1. Government's Rationale: Correcting Labour Market Distortions
The primary objective of the pause is explicitly stated: "to facilitate adequate availability of agricultural labour during peak agricultural seasons" and to prevent wage distortion.
The Alleged Problem: MGNREGA's existence guaranteed a fallback wage, which, during peak season, forced farmers (especially large, market-oriented ones) to raise agricultural wages significantly to attract labour away from public works. The government argues the pause will stabilize agricultural wages and ensure farm productivity.
2. Economic Impact on Rural Labourers (The 'Reverse Safety Net')
For the rural poor, the 60-day pause represents a deliberate interruption of their income security.
A. Loss of the Income-Smoothing Mechanism
The key function of MGNREGA was income smoothing—providing a stable safety net during the lean season when agricultural work dried up.7 However, many workers used MGNREGA to supplement low, unstable, or delayed payments from private agriculture even during peak season.
The Vulnerable Group: Landless labourers, marginal farmers, and households primarily dependent on wage labour are forced to rely solely on the private agricultural market for 60 days.
Risk: If the private sector does not absorb all available workers, or if farm wages are delayed or less than the government-guaranteed rate, these households face two months of severe vulnerability.
B. Shorter Window for Guaranteed Employment
The total guarantee is 125 days, up from 100.8 However, the effective working period is now reduced by 60 days.9
Total Days in a Year (365),Seasonal Pause(60) = (305)
The entire 125-day guarantee must be earned within approximately 305 days. While mathematically possible, the concentration of demand in the remaining months will put immense pressure on the Normative Allocation (budget cap) system. If the state hits its pre-fixed budget limit early, the remaining work demand will be denied, rendering the 125-day promise hollow.10
C. Worsening Wage Disparity
The government claims the pause prevents wage distortion.11 The counter-argument is that it prevents upward wage convergence for the poorest. By forcing the labourers back into the private market during peak demand, the government effectively acts as a backstop for private farmers, ensuring cheap labour availability. This erodes the bargaining power that MGNREGA had given workers, especially women.
3. Economic Impact on States (Fiscal Strain)
The pause, combined with the 60:40 funding shift, puts state governments in a bind:
Political Backlash: The pause will likely lead to political unrest among the rural poor, forcing state governments to find an alternative to the 60-day gap to maintain social peace.
Unbudgeted Cost: Any substitute employment scheme initiated by the state to fill the 60-day gap would be 100% funded by the state's budget, compounding the fiscal burden already created by the 40% cost-sharing mandate.
In conclusion, the 60-day pause fundamentally changes the nature of the scheme from a year-round, unconditional social safety net to a seasonal, conditional job program primarily designed to serve the needs of the agricultural sector rather than the unconditional right of the labourer.12
Centralization, Technology, and the Erosion of Gram Panchayat Autonomy
The original MGNREGA was a cornerstone of administrative decentralization in line with the 73rd Constitutional Amendment. The VB-G RAM G Bill uses technology and central directives to move the locus of control away from the local Gram Panchayat to centralized mission control structures.1
1. The Dilution of Gram Panchayat Planning Authority
Under MGNREGA, the Gram Panchayat (GP) was the engine of the scheme. It was responsible for:
Receiving work applications.
Preparing the Annual Work Plan (Labour Budget).
Recommending and supervising the works.
Conducting the mandatory Social Audit through the Gram Sabha (Village Assembly).2
The VB-G RAM G Shift: Mission-Mode and Strategic Assets
The new bill shifts the scheme from a locally-planned, demand-driven process to a Mission-Mode approach focused on national strategic goals:3
Strategic Asset Verticalization: The Bill prioritizes work creation under four specific infrastructure verticals (Water Security, Core Rural Infrastructure, Livelihood Infrastructure, and Climate Resilience).4 All assets must aggregate into the Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack.
Impact: While this ensures "durable assets" and convergence with other Central Schemes, it restricts the GP's freedom to propose works based purely on localized, unique needs (e.g., local drainage, specific village paths). The GP's role becomes primarily that of an implementer of centrally-defined strategic projects, rather than a planner of works based on local demand.
Central Steering Council: The new law establishes a Central Gramin Rozgar Guarantee Council to oversee implementation, which critics argue centralizes strategic control over the scheme's direction, further reducing state and local autonomy.6
2. The Weaponization of Technology: Efficiency vs. Exclusion
The VB-G RAM G Bill explicitly leverages AI, GPS, and digital formalization to enhance transparency and tackle corruption, which were significant challenges under MGNREGA (e.g., ghost workers, payment delays).
Technology Feature | Government's Claim (Efficiency/Transparency) | Critic's Concern (Exclusion/Control) |
AI-Based Fraud Detection | Uses Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to analyze patterns in job card usage, attendance, and transactions to reduce "false beneficiary inclusion" and check for fictitious job cards (ghost workers). | Digital Exclusion: AI models are prone to data bias and "false positives." If an illiterate, remote worker's pattern of work is flagged as suspicious by an opaque AI model, they risk arbitrary termination of benefits without a transparent recourse. This shifts the burden of proof to the most vulnerable. |
GPS and Mobile-Based Monitoring (NMMS) | Mandatory Geo-tagged attendance (National Mobile Monitoring System) and GPS-stamping of assets ensure no work is recorded without physical presence and worksites are verified. | Time-Stamp Exclusion: Workers face exclusion due to faulty GPS signals, unreliable mobile networks in remote areas, and battery issues. If an attendance photo fails to upload due to connectivity, the worker is marked absent and loses a day's wage, undermining the right to timely payment. |
Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AEPS) | Ensures Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to fully verified beneficiaries, preventing wage theft by intermediaries. The Bill guarantees weekly wage payments. | Mandatory De-linking: Strict enforcement of AEPS, if not $100\%$ error-free, can lead to the "de-linking" of bank accounts due to name mismatches between Aadhaar and bank records, resulting in zero transactions for eligible workers (a documented issue under MGNREGA). |
3. The New Accountability Mechanism: Social Audit vs. Digital Disclosure
MGNREGA's accountability relied on the Social Audit, where the Gram Sabha (all adult members of the village) had the statutory power to audit all records and expenditures.7 This was a powerful tool for people's monitoring and grievance redressal.
VB-G RAM G's Approach: The new law emphasizes "Weekly Public Disclosures" of work status, payments, and grievances in publicly accessible physical and digital formats.8 It also proposes "Twice-yearly Social Audits" per Gram Panchayat.
The Conflict: While increasing the frequency of social audits is positive, the heavy reliance on digital disclosures may inadvertently replace the accessible, on-site, public-hearing-based audit with a complex, data-driven report that is inaccessible to the majority of workers who are digitally illiterate. This is seen as weakening the spirit of the Social Audit—which is about public verification, not just public data display.
In essence, the VB-G RAM G Bill uses the promise of "digital formalization" and "efficiency" to justify a system that grants the Centre greater control over fund allocation, asset creation, and monitoring, potentially at the expense of local governance and the rights of the most digitally vulnerable workers.
The proposed Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025 is not merely a name change for the landmark MGNREGA; it is a fundamental, structural dilution of a Statutory Right to Work. While promising 125 guaranteed days and strategic asset creation, the Bill systematically strips away the scheme's core strength: unconditional entitlement. The shift from 100% Central funding and a demand-driven model to a 60:40 Centre-State cost-sharing and Normative Allocation effectively ends the legal guarantee, transforming it into a budget-capped welfare program that transfers fiscal liability to the states. Furthermore, the introduction of a mandatory 60-day seasonal pause and a new national wage floor (Rs. 240) that is lower than current wages in progressive states, directly compromises the livelihoods of the poorest and erodes their wage bargaining power. Coupled with the centralization of planning and reliance on technology, the VB-G RAM G Bill sacrifices local autonomy and financial security for the sake of centralized control and fiscal rationalization. Ultimately, this overhaul is a profound regression, replacing a hard-won, rights-based safety net with a conditional, government-managed development mission, thereby threatening the dignity and livelihood security of the rural poor.
References
1. Government of India. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005. Ministry of Law and Justice.
2. Government of India. Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025 (as introduced in Lok Sabha).
3. Dreze, J., & Sen, A. (2013). An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions. Princeton University Press.
4. Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). Performance Audit Reports on MGNREGA (various years).
5. Ministry of Rural Development. MGNREGA Operational Guidelines (latest revised editions).
6. National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR). Social Audit and Decentralisation under MGNREGA.
7. Khera, R. (2011). The Battle for Employment Guarantee. Oxford University Press.
8. Planning Commission of India. Evaluation Study of Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY).
9. Ministry of Rural Development. MGNREGA Wage Rate Notifications (State-wise).
10. Standing Committee on Rural Development (Parliament of India). Reports on Implementation of MGNREGA.
11. Supreme Court of India. People’s Union for Civil Liberties vs Union of India (Right to Food and Employment jurisprudence).
12. World Bank. Public Works as Safety Nets: Design, Evidence, and Implementation.
13. UNDP India. Decent Work and Social Protection in Rural India.
14. Ambedkar, B.R. (1949). Constituent Assembly Debates (on decentralisation and social justice).
15. Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare. Agricultural Labour and Wage Trends in India.
16. Government of India. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005. Ministry of Law and Justice.
17. Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). MGNREGA Operational Guidelines (various years).
18. Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), November 2025.
19. Ministry of Finance. Expenditure Profile and Centrally Sponsored Schemes Framework. Government of India.
20. Government of India. Viksit Bharat@2047 Vision Documents.
21. Modi, N. (2015). Lok Sabha Debate on MGNREGA, Budget Session.
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