A day after the Lok Sabha cleared the VB-G Ram G Bill after protests by opposition, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to “weaken labour and the leverage of rural India” in the name of “reform”.
In a post on X, Rahul, who skipped the debate on December 18 due to his visit to Germany, said that the G Ram G bill – which stands for Viksit Bharat—Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025 – is not merely a revamp of MGNREGA but an attempt to “demolish” rights-based and demand-driven guarantee.
“Last night, the Modi government demolished twenty years of MGNREGA in one day. VB–G RAM G isn’t a “revamp” of MGNREGA. 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,” he said.
Rahul added: “MGNREGA gave the rural worker bargaining power. 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 said how the MGNREGA, enacted in 2005, helped the poor during the Covid period when the economy shut down and collapsed. “By capping work and building in more ways to deny it, VB–G RAM G weakens the one instrument which the rural poor had,” he said.
The Congress leader added that women, Dalits and tribals will get hit the most due to “rationing of the jobs programme”.
“To top it all, this law was bulldozed through Parliament without proper scrutiny. The opposition 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,” he said.
Rahul further added: “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”.”
He said that the Congress won’t let the government “destroy the rural poor’s last line of defence”, pledging to “stand with” workers, panchayats and states to defeat the proposed revamp.
What is G Ram G Bill?
The G RAM G Bill proposes to increase the statutory guarantee of wage employment from 100 days to 125 days per financial year for every rural household whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work.
Moreover, unlike MGNREGA, which was fully funded by the Centre for wages and demand-driven, VB–G RAM G will be a centrally sponsored scheme. The cost sharing will be 60:40 between Centre and states for most states; 90:10 for northeastern and Himalayan states; and 100% central funding for Union Territories without legislatures.
While MGNREGA was a demand-driven scheme with the Union government bound to allocate more money if demand for work was there, under the proposed scheme, the Centre would determine state-wise normative allocation for each financial year.
Any expenditure incurred by a state in excess would be borne by the state government. The wage rate would be specified by the Central government through a notification. The Bill says it should not be less than the prevailing wage rates under the MGNREGA.
The Rural Development Ministry has described the Bill as a “major upgrade” over MGNREGA, aimed at fixing structural weaknesses while improving transparency, planning and accountability.
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