After forcefully pushing through the controversial labour codes, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government has now targeted the rural working classes. It has passed the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin): VB – G RAM G Bill in parliament, snatching away the hard-earned right to work. The VB – G RAM G will repeal and replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005 upon getting the President’s assent.Erasing mass struggles, pushing Hindutva This government has been hostile to MGNREGA since it came to power. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking in Parliament, called it a “living monument” to the failures of the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance government. Even so, it could not deny the Act’s critical importance for the rural workforce and economy.This contradiction flows from the BJP’s approach to democracy and the self-obsessed character of the government. The party and its government both resented MGNREGA because it was introduced by an earlier government – yet its proven utility meant it could not be discarded outright.Also read: From NREGA Job Card Deletions to Complex Aadhaar Mechanism, Tech Solutions Are Not the AnswerAt the same time, the regime projects as if every positive initiative originated after it came to power. It finds even the name MGNREGA unacceptable. The legacy of that Act, the long struggles leading to its enactment and the decisive role of the Left parties in its formulation are intolerable to the Sangh Parivar. Calling the new law VB – G Ram G is a clear nod to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s sinister agenda.Demand-driven guarantee of work to budget-controlled schemeThe BJP government projects the VB – G RAM G Bill as superior to MGNREGA, but not because it genuinely cares to resolve the massive unemployment, widespread poverty and deteriorating living conditions of rural workers. The fact is, the Bill clearly departs from the basic spirit and foundational principles of MGNREGA.Women MGNREGA workers rest during removing mud from a dry pond at village Asir, District Sirsa, Haryana, 2023. Photo: Mulkh Singh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsMGNREGA is a demand-driven programme that legally obligates the state to provide employment. On the other hand, VB – G RAM G overturns this principle by converting a statutory right into a discretionary scheme and shifts the financial and administrative burden onto state governments.The MGNREGA is demand-driven because it obliges the Union to provide the funds required to fulfil rural demand for work under the Act. The present government did not just progressively curtail allocations for the scheme over the years, it has now passed the VB – G RAM G to legitimise this denial.Also read: Stagnant MGNREGS Allocation Part of Govt’s ‘Sabotage’ of Scheme: NREGA Sangharsh MorchaSection 4(5) of the Bill empowers the Union to fix a “normative allocation” for states for each financial year based on “objective parameters as may be prescribed by the Central Government”. The following section makes any expenditure beyond this limit the responsibility of state governments. Not just that. According to Section 4(6), the “manner” and “procedure” to spend the state government’s share will also be “prescribed by the Central Government”.Therefore, the Union will arbitrarily determine the funding to each state and dictate the number of days of employment it can generate. This reverses the core principle of MGNREGA, away from a framework where funds follow demand to a model in which demand is forced to fit a pre-determined budget.No more year-long employmentSection 6 of VB – G RAM G, on the pretext of making agricultural labour available, enforces a highly regressive provision – in Section 6(2), it says state governments “shall notify in advance a period aggregating to sixty days in a financial year, covering the peak agricultural seasons of sowing and harvesting, during which works under this Act shall not be undertaken”.This provision directly undermines the right of work. With high mechanisation, the working days in agriculture have been decreasing and work opportunities falling even during sowing and harvesting seasons. MGNREGA helped resist the fall in wage rates during these seasons, for it guaranteed a minimum wage, creating a collective bargaining instrument to ensure better wages for agricultural work. Now, landlords and rich peasantry will regain a free hand to exploit agricultural labourers.Section 6(2) serves the class interests of landlords and capitalist farmers by ensuring the availability of inexpensive labour during peak seasons. It does this by suspending a welfare and development programme to protect private profit interests.Class question of wage ratesUnder section 10 of VB – G RAM G, wage rates will be fixed by the Union, but with a major limitation. Section 6(2) of the MGNREGA Act states that wages should be aligned with the minimum wages (under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948) for agricultural labour. MGNREGA wages were delinked from the 1948 law in January 2009, shortly after the Left parties withdrew support to the United Progressive Alliance government, then in its first term.Worker organisations have consistently demanded that MGNREGA wages be linked to minimum wage for agricultural workers – in most states, the wages are below that level. However, the new Bill removes this aspect altogether.In May 2025, a parliamentary committee recommended raising MGNREGA wages to at least Rs 400 a day, saying the current rates were insufficient for basic needs. In a report to parliament this March, the committee called for revising wage rates based on the real impact of inflation on rural households.Also read: Household Spending on Food Falls Below 50% for the the First Time Since 1947: ReportCurrently, MGNREGA wages are calculated based on the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers, with 2009 as the base year. The committee strongly criticised this method, calling it irrelevant and incapable of reflecting inflation and living costs.The Mahendra Dev Committee had, in 2013, suggested updating MGNREGA wages to the 2014 rate in states for unskilled agricultural labourers under the 1948 Act, or the “current MGNREGA wage rate” – whichever is higher. It also said that the CPI (Rural) must be the index to protect MGNREGA wages against inflation. The Anoop Satpathy Committee also recommended a minimum daily wage of Rs 375.MGNREGA workers in Bihar on dharna against the non-payment of wages, lack of available work and other issues. Photo: Twitter/ NREGA_Sangharsh.However, the central government has ignored all such recommendations, and the latest Bill abandons the principle entirely. It does not link wages to any legally binding statute, nor mandates inflation indexation – not even guaranteeing alignment with the national floor wage. This gives the Union government unchecked power to fix wages at arbitrarily low levels, with no legal obligation to revise them over time.Wages aligned with inflation, minimum wage standards and actual cost of living alone can make any employment guarantee scheme a tool for rural transformation. Unless each of these aspects are considered when wages are determined, income security and worker rights and dignity will always be at risk.Financial burden on statesThe scheme under VB – G RAM G is explicitly designed as a Centrally-Sponsored Scheme, but one in which state governments will have to bear 40% of the total financial burden. MGNREGA made the Union government responsible for 100% of labour wages and 75% of material wages. In practice, this translates to a 90:10 cost share between the Union and the states.Now, Section 22(2) of the new Bill provides for 90:10 fund-sharing between the Union and the states for the Northeastern and Himalayan states and the Union Territories of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The funding pattern will be 60:40 for all other states and Union territories with legislatures.Under Section 11 of VB – G RAM G, the unemployment allowance shall be payable if work is not provided within fifteen days. Also, Section 22(8) puts the liability for such allowance on the states.Ever since the Goods and Services Tax was introduced across the country, states have faced acute fiscal stress due to reduced autonomy over taxation and frequent delays in transfers from the Union. The additional financial burden of MGNREGA will severely weaken both the right to work and the capacity of states to fund other welfare programmes. It will disproportionately impact the less well-off, impoverished and high out-migration states, where creating rural employment is of greater urgency.The higher financial burden will lead states to resort to fiscal conservatism and not register workers’ demand for employment, undermining the logic of national employment guarantee.Centralising power, marginalising gram sabhasOne of the defining features of MGNREGA is that the planning of works to be undertaken is done through Gram Sabhas, based on local needs. This is in accordance with the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, but it is another aspect reversed by the proposed new law. It shifts the planning process away from the local area to a pre-defined and centralised system of a ‘Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack’.Schedule 1, Clause 6(4) of the Bill states that this stack “shall guide states, districts and Panchayati Raj Institutions in identifying priority infrastructure gaps, standardising work designs and ensuring that public investments contribute measurably to saturation outcomes at the gram panchayat, block and district levels”.Under MGNREGA, gram sabhas have the authority to identify and approve works. Every resident in a village has a right to attend the gram sabha and an equal right to participate in its discussions. Work will be identified through a top-down approach, with projects required to align with centrally defined priorities such as the Viksit Bharat agenda and the ‘PM Gati Shakti’ scheme.Diluting universality of employment guaranteeThis marks a fundamental shift in the decision-making away from people and local democratic institutions to an extremely centralised bureaucracy. MGNREGA, which emerged from mass struggles and was conceived as a participatory employment-cum-development programme, is being transformed into a centrally-controlled welfare scheme.At the height of this centralisation, the Union government will even decide when and where the Act will be operational. An ambiguous clause, Section 5(1) of the VB – G RAM G Bill says that the Union will notify areas where the state will provide “not less than 125 days of guaranteed employment” to “every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work”.Also read: India’s Centralisation Migraine: When Tech and Finance Crush FederalismIt is unclear whether a rural area not notified by the Union government will have the right to work in that area – a complete dilution of democratic decentralisation.Increase in number of work days?The hype around the VB – G RAM G Bill revolves around the claim that it raises the guaranteed work days to 125. However, this appears to be nothing but rhetoric. The average number of workdays in most states is low – below 50. Only a minuscule proportion of households could access 100 days of work. The restrictive new provisions would make it almost impossible to raise the actual number of working days.Technocratic surveillance, new architecture of exclusionIn one stroke, VB – G RAM G legalises and institutionalises all the controversial and exclusionary mechanisms that deterred the implementation of MGNREGA. These include biometric authentication of workers and functionaries, digitisation of transactions, geospatial technology-enabled planning and mobile app and dashboard-based monitoring. Worker organisations have repeatedly highlighted widespread exclusions resulting from the imposition of opaque and arbitrary technologies in MGNREGA, including digital attendance and Aadhaar-based payment systems.All India Agricultural Workers’ Union members stage a protest against the central government repealing the MGNREGA. Photo: PTIThe process of passing this Bill has also been against established democratic norms. Before MGNREGA was enacted, there were widespread consultations with workers, their organisations and other stakeholders and rigorous discussions in parliament. This Bill was proposed without consultation and passed amidst widespread protests in parliament. The Bill represents a fundamental shift from a rights-based law that provides an enforceable entitlement into a budget-constrained scheme without any accountability of the Union government.The rural rich and landlord class have always adopted an anti-MGNREGA stance, and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government has displayed its class character through VB – G RAM G.The Narendra Modi government is known to oppose the right to work of rural poor and, through budgetary cuts, delayed payments, administrative hurdles – and this proposed legislation – it has systematically tried to weaken and ultimately dismantle the right to work.Agricultural workers, rural labourers and the rural poor will not accept this rollback of their democratic and economic rights. They will resist this anti-worker, pro-landlord and pro-corporate legislation through united struggles on the streets in defence of MGNREGA and the constitutional principle of the state’s responsibility towards the working class.