Congress leader Rahul Gandhi came down heavily on the Narendra Modi government for dismantling two decades of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in a single day. He called the new Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) legislation as “anti-village.”
He said the VB-G RAM G Bill is not a “revamp” of MGNREGA and warned that it undermines the rights of rural workers. In a post on X, he wrote, “Last night, the Modi government demolished twenty years of MGNREGA in one day. It demolishes the rights-based, demand-driven guarantee and turns it into a rationed scheme which is controlled from Delhi. It is anti-state and anti-village by design.”
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha highlighted the empowerment MGNREGA gave to workers. “With real options, exploitation and distress migration fell, wages increased, working conditions improved, all while building and reviving rural infrastructure. That leverage is precisely what this government wants to break,” he added.
He added the VB-G RAM G Bill weakens the last instrument available to the rural poor by capping work and creating multiple ways to deny it.
“We saw what MGNREGA meant during Covid. When the economy shut down and livelihoods collapsed, it kept crores from falling into hunger and debt,” Rahul Gandhi claimed, noting that women benefited the most, contributing more than half the person-days each year.
“When you ration a jobs programme, it is women, Dalits, Adivasis, landless workers and the poorest OBC communities who get pushed out first,” he was quoted as saying.
Rahul Gandhi also criticised the manner in which the bill was passed: “To top it all, this law was bulldozed through Parliament without proper scrutiny. The opposition’s demand to send the Bill to a standing committee was rejected. A law that rewires the rural social contract, affecting crores of workers, should never be rammed through without serious committee scrutiny, expert consultation, and public hearings. PM Modi’s targets are clear: Weaken labour, weaken the leverage of rural India, especially Dalits, OBCs and Adivasis, centralise power, and then sell slogans as reform.”
Furthermore, he reaffirmed MGNREGA’s importance as a global benchmark for poverty alleviation and empowerment: “We will not let this government destroy the rural poor’s last line of defence. We will stand with workers, panchayats, and states to defeat this move and build a nationwide front to ensure this law is withdrawn.”
The VB-G RAM G Bill, which guarantees 125 days of rural wage employment annually, was passed by Parliament Thursday night amid vociferous opposition protests after receiving the Rajya Sabha’s nod post-midnight.
‘Landmark registration’
Meanwhile, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and nine other leading academics wrote an open letter to the government, warning that dismantling MGNREGA “would be a historic error.” They described MGNREGA as “landmark legislation” and “the world’s most significant policy operationalising a demand-driven, legal right to employment.”
The letter said the Act affirms economic dignity as a fundamental right, and empirical evidence underscores its impact. “The early years of the Act coincided with unprecedented rural wage growth, and studies confirmed the program’s positive effects on economic output and efficiency, dispelling myths of unproductivity,” a part of the letter reads.
They cautioned that chronic underfunding and delayed payments had long hampered MGNREGA, and the new bill threatens its existence by devolving responsibility to states without sufficient fiscal support. “The current shift to devolve the scheme to states and without commensurate fiscal support, now threatens its existence. States lack the central government’s financial capacity,” they said. The letter warned that increased costs for states could stifle work demand and compromise the scheme’s objectives.
According to various reports published by the media, the academics also criticised the discretionary “switch-off” powers under the new framework, which could render the guarantee meaningless. They cited West Bengal, where MGNREGA funding had been suspended for three years despite prior allocations of Rs 7,507 crore in 2021-’22, as an example of political misuse.
MGNREGA, the letter noted, not only provides wages but also builds vital rural infrastructure, including wells, roads, and ponds, and stimulates local economies. “By making projects financially untenable for states, these multiplier effects are extinguished,” they said. The signatories include Olivier De Schutter, Pavlina Tcherneva, and Thomas Piketty.
Under the VB-G RAM G Bill, the Union government will determine state-wise allocations and notify rural areas where the scheme will operate. Funding contributions from North Eastern and Himalayan states, along with Union Territories with legislatures, will be limited to 10%, while states will face increased material and administrative costs, raising concerns about the programme’s long-term viability.
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