Schemed for erasure

Does the VB-G RAMG Act address structural weaknesses long observed in MGNREGA's implementation?

- JUGAL MOHAPATRA AND SIRAJ HUSSAIN

FEW PIECES of legislation have provoked as much controversy as the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025, or VB-G RAM G Act, which now replaces the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (MGNREGA). To the Union government, the new law is a long-overdue correction—a path-breaking effort, in the words of Union rural development minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who piloted the VB-G RAM G Bill through Parliament, to “fix the structural gaps” in MGNREGA and “to reform it into a modern, enforceable and integrated employment guarantee that advances welfare through development”. To critics, including many of MGNREGA’S architects, the new law represents a consequential shift: a quiet dismantling of a rights-based entitlement that guaranteed rural households 100 days of unskilled work. MGNREGA, they argue, not only fulfilled the right to work promised in the “Directive Principles” of the Constitution of India but also created rural assets to strengthen the livelihood base of the rural poor. For those on the other side, MGNREGA was little more than a wasteful welfare handout that constituted avoidable misallocation of resources.

The controversy is unlikely to fade soon. The Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, has already pledged to mobilise against the new law and demand the restoration of MGNREGA. It is therefore important to analyse the principal arguments on both sides and assesses whether the new framework meaningfully addresses the structural weaknesses observed in MGNREGA'S implementation.

WHY A RUSHED REFORM