From Right to Rationed Work: How VB–G RAM G Risks Unmaking India’s Rural Safety Net

VB–G RAM G Rural Employment Bill: The Modi government’s move to repeal the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and replace it with the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB–G RAM G) Bill, 2025 marks a profound shift in India’s approach to rural employment—from a justiciable right anchored in federal responsibility to a centrally rationed programme framed by ceilings, conditions and cost transfers. The opposition’s resistance is not merely about the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name, though symbolism matters in public policy. It is about the quiet erosion of a rights-based guarantee that, for nearly two decades, has functioned as India’s most consequential anti-poverty intervention in rural India.

Why MGNREGA Scheme? 

MGNREGA was born in 2005 out of a recognition that rural distress in India was structural, not episodic. By guaranteeing 100 days of wage employment on demand to every rural household, the Act created a legal obligation on the state. When work was demanded, it had to be provided; when it was not, unemployment allowance was payable. This demand-driven architecture, backed by full central funding of unskilled wages, made MGNREGA scheme unique among welfare programmes. It also delivered results. According to official data over the years, the scheme has generated between 2.5 and 3 billion person-days of employment annually at its peak, with women consistently accounting for more than 50 per cent of total workdays—one of the highest female participation rates in any public programme globally. Independent studies, including those cited by the World Bank, have linked MGNREGA to reductions in rural poverty, distress migration, and wage suppression, while improving food security and asset creation at the village level.

MGNREGA Replacing with VB–G RAM G

The VB–G RAM G Bill claims to expand the guarantee to 125 days, a headline-grabbing promise that collapses under scrutiny. The fine print introduces a 60:40 cost-sharing formula, shifting 40 per cent of the unskilled wage burden to states — something MGNREGA explicitly avoided. This is not a minor accounting tweak. States already grappling with fiscal stress will be forced to either cut back on work provision or divert funds from other welfare priorities. Opposition leaders estimate the additional burden on states at over ₹50,000 crore annually, with Kerala alone facing an extra ₹2,000–2,500 crore. In a federal system where the Centre controls taxation powers disproportionately, such cost-shifting is less reform than abdication, wrapped in the rhetoric of “cooperative federalism”.

More troubling is the Bill’s departure from demand-driven employment. Section 4(5) empowers the Centre to determine state-wise “normative allocations” based on parameters it alone prescribes. This reverses the core logic of MGNREGA. Under the existing law, demand determines allocation; under VB–G RAM G, allocation determines rights. When funds run out, work stops—irrespective of need. This transforms a legal guarantee into a budgeted scheme, vulnerable to political discretion. As CPM MP John Brittas argued, this creates a perverse incentive structure where opposition-ruled states can be penalised through tighter ceilings, while compliant states are rewarded—an allegation reinforced by past experience of delayed or withheld MGNREGA dues to states like West Bengal.

The proposed reliance on indices such as the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to decide allocations further complicates matters. States like Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which have invested heavily in social development and therefore score lower on MPI, risk being punished for their success. Poverty in India is not uniform; seasonal unemployment, agrarian distress and climate shocks cut across statistical averages. A low MPI does not mean the absence of joblessness during lean agricultural months. By tying employment guarantees to technocratic metrics, the Bill risks invisibilising lived rural precarity.

The institutional redesign is equally consequential. MGNREGA deliberately empowered Gram Sabhas and Panchayats to plan and execute works based on local priorities—water conservation, land development, rural connectivity. VB–G RAM G replaces this decentralised planning with a technology-heavy, centrally curated infrastructure stack — GIS mapping, PM Gati Shakti layers, biometric attendance, geo-tagging and AI audits. Technology can enhance transparency, but making it statutory without robust grievance redress mechanisms risks exclusion. Experience under Aadhaar-linked welfare schemes has shown that authentication failures disproportionately hurt the poorest. In rural labour markets, a failed biometric scan can mean a lost day’s wage. When dashboards replace deliberative local institutions, people become data points rather than rights-bearing citizens.

Perhaps the most regressive provision is the clause allowing suspension of work for up to 60 days annually during agricultural seasons. Framed as an efficiency measure, it effectively instructs workers not to seek public employment when private agricultural demand peaks. This is not employment guarantee; it is labour supply management. MGNREGA’s strength lay in its counter-cyclical role—providing fallback income when private employment faltered, thereby strengthening workers’ bargaining power. By legally blocking access to public works during certain periods, the state intervenes in labour markets to the detriment of workers’ autonomy and wages.

What Opposition Saying About VB-G RAM G Scheme 

Opposition leaders across parties have rightly called this out. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra questioned the rationale of erasing Mahatma Gandhi’s name, pointing to the wasteful expenditure and deeper ideological intent behind symbolic renaming.

Derek O’Brien termed it an insult to Gandhi’s legacy, while Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka recalled how parliamentary committees had repeatedly recommended expanding MGNREGA to 150 days and increasing wages, not diluting its core.

CPM general secretary M.A. Baby warned that the Bill codifies technological exclusions and dismantles the rights-based framework, linking it to broader labour law changes that weaken worker protections.

The debate, therefore, is not nostalgic attachment to a name but a contest over the idea of the Indian welfare state. MGNREGA represented a constitutional promise translated into everyday livelihood security. VB–G RAM G, despite its grandiose branding, risks converting that promise into a conditional, centrally managed programme where rights depend on allocations, algorithms and political favour.

In the march towards “Viksit Bharat 2047”, dismantling one of the world’s largest employment guarantees may prove not visionary reform, but a historic retreat from the republic’s commitment to its rural poor.