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, enforce able 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.
Before turning to the substance of the law, the manner of its enactment warrants scrutiny. The VB-G RAM G Act was pushed through Parliament in a tearing hurry, passed by Lok Sabha on December 18, 2025, and granted presidential assent within three days. Such haste is striking given the law’s far-reaching fiscal and administrative implications, particularly for state governments that bear the primary responsibility to implement employment guarantee programmes.
No prior consultation with states was disclosed before the Bill was introduced, raising questions about the government’s commitment to the spirit of cooperative federalism. Since the law’s enactment, the rural development minister has rejected claims that the reform was rushed, insisting that it was preceded by “extensive consultations with state governments, technical workshops and multi-stakeholder consultations”. However, no record of these consultations is available in the public domain. Whether states were meaningfully consulted remains for them to confirm—or contest.
The legislation was also not referred to a standing committee or a joint parliamentary committee, as is customary for major reforms. The government has offered no public explanation for dispensing with the procedural safeguards, particularly in absence of any evident urgency.
Critics argue that the new law replaces a statutory job guarantee with a “central government scheme”, which offers no enforceable guarantee at all. Their concern stems from six provisions of the Act.
First, section 4(5) converts the statutory employment guarantee under MGNREGA into an allocation-based, centrally sponsored “scheme” and empowers the Union government to determine state-wise allocations annually. Second, states wishing to supplement central allocations from their own resources to provide a more expansive …
This article was originally published in the January 16-31, 2026 print edition of Down To Earth