“As an engine to implement the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, MGNREGA strengthened the panchayat raj institutions.”
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G), 2025 Act, which replaces the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), received the President’s assent on Sunday.
Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees the right to life. The Supreme Court in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation in 1985 ruled that “if there’s an obligation upon the State to secure to the citizens an adequate means of livelihood and right to work, it would be sheer pedantry to exclude the right to livelihood from the content of the right to life.”
MGNREGA, arrived at through sustained social movements and passed unanimously in Parliament, envisions the right to work as a necessary condition for the right to life. It is, therefore, a departure from earlier public works programmes as MGNREGA’s provisions amount to justiciable rights — the right to work on demand, the right to unemployment allowance if work is not provided within 15 days, the right to payment of wages within 15 days and payment of delay compensation otherwise, gender parity in wages, minimum wages, among others. The Act also envisaged relief from ecological distress through the creation of long-term sustainable assets. As an engine to implement the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, MGNREGA strengthened the panchayat raj institutions.
Editorial | Change for the worse: On MGNREGA to VB-G RAM G
Five broad positive outcomes of MGNREGA can be identified as (a) it is universal and not targeted, (b) it resulted in an increase in rural incomes, (c) it counters gender and caste inequalities, (d) it creates quality assets and (e) it empowers communities. Within a few years of MGNREGA, studies showed that incomes of workers increased, overall poverty fell and school enrolment increased. According to an India Human Development Survey, reliance on money lenders decreased by 21%. About 45% of female MGNREGA workers were either not working or worked only on family farms before the Act. Women’s participation has been around 58% in MGNREGA over the last five years. In the face of mounting evidence, even the World Bank changed from referring to it as a “barrier to development” in 2009 to calling it a “stellar example” of rural development in 2014. MGNREGA’s role during the COVID pandemic is widely known.
Many issues
Perhaps the chronicle of death was foretold over the last decade. Chronic underfunding has resulted in persistent wage payment delays, a fact acknowledged by the Ministry of Finance. Budget constraints have meant that officials have resorted to rationing work. Activists and researchers routinely brought up exclusions leading to denial of rights arising from opaque technocratic initiatives such as a photo-based attendance app and complex payment systems. Such initiatives gave new ammunition for corruption as these widened the gulf between workers and officials. Staff shortage exacerbated corruption. Built-in principles to mitigate corruption like social audits have been underfunded.
The VB-G RAM G Act was steamrolled in Parliament in such a scenario. Section 5(1) of this Act gives arbitrary, discretionary powers to the Union government to decide where, what and how public works will happen. According to Section 4(5), the Union government will determine and prescribe “State-wise normative allocations” of funds based on “objective parameters”. Instead of demand-driven, as MP Manoj Jha put it, this makes it “command-driven” rendering it to a centrally sponsored allocation based model, putting States at the mercy of the Centre. Local autonomy ideas of MGNREGA stand compromised.
In the Swaraj Abhiyan case in 2018, the Supreme Court ordered the Union government to pay compensation for delays in payments caused by it. The new Act places no obligation on the Union government for payment delays. Roughly 90% of the MGNREGA expenditure is borne by the Union government and 10% by the States. As per Section 22 of the new Act, barring some States, the Centre to State ratio of funds has been altered to 60:40. Further, the new Act states that “expenditure by a State in excess of its normative allocation shall be borne by the State government”. Taken together, these clauses might lead to political favouritism towards some States and victimisation of others.
Forced to be fiscally prudent, States are likely to stifle work demand leading to increased unemployment and distress migration.
The opportunity to work anytime in the year is vital, especially for the landless and women. However, the proposition (Section 6(2)) in the new Act to not provide any employment for 60 days during the agricultural season, will only ossify the entrenched land, caste and gender inequalities. Despite support for MGNREGA from farmers’ platforms and evidence pointing to farmers benefiting from MGNREGA, the new Act attempts to legally pit farmers with labourers. The new Act claims to provide 125 days of employment per household per year. However, if in the current funding situation, average days of work per year per household was around 50, the claim of 125 days of employment in a year is a red herring. Finally, the new Act has no new provisions to mitigate corruption.
MGNREGA combines Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of local governance with B.R. Ambebdkar’s spirit of empowering citizens with rights. By formalising the decade-long slow poisoning of the MGNREGA, the new Act undermines both Gandhi and Ambedkar.
Rajendran Narayanan teaches in Azim Premji University, Bangalore and is affiliated with LibTech India; Views are personal
Published – December 23, 2025 12:48 am IST
