The Viksit Bharat — Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-GRAMG) Act, 2025, which has replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), will impact transparency and scrutiny over its functioning, researchers have pointed out.
The bill was hurriedly passed on December 18 by both Houses of Parliament and received the President’s approval on December 21. The Act was discussed and passed with limited parliamentary scrutiny and without public consultation.
In a statement issued by LibTech India, a team of engineers, social workers and social scientists focusing on democratic engagement in rural public services delivery pointed out that under MGNREGA, substantial programme information was proactively placed in the public domain through the Management Information System (MIS). It added that despite limitations, the principle of public disclosure remained central.
The information enabled scope for social audits, independent research, media scrutiny, and corrective action by governments themselves.
But the same statutory disclosure architecture allowing public scrutiny is now threatened.
“While the new Act contains references to transparency, there is no clarity on the scope, granularity, and enforceability of the data that will be placed in the public domain, or whether it will match the worker-level, demand-side disclosures that existed under MGNREGA,” the statement said.
The researchers said the risk is exacerbated due to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023.
Although the DPDP Act permits continued access to information that is already mandated to be public by law, the precise contours of what will legally constitute public domain information under the new employment framework are unclear, the statement said.
The reason for the same is the ongoing concern with MGNREGA in the context of MIS-isation of welfare delivery. The researchers said in recent years, the implementation processes became heavily dependent on a digital workforce and system compliance to the extent that activities not reflected in the MIS were often treated as if they had not occurred at all leading to denial of rights, delayed grievance redress, and “invisibilisation” of genuine work.
On the VB-GRAMG Act being aimed to eliminate ongoing corruption in MGNREGA, the researchers said the provisions for addressing corruption with tools like social audits and public hearings were in-built in MGNREGA but have been weakened and are routinely under-funded.
Such provisions are absent in the VB-GRAMG Act that aims to mitigate corruption.
“On the contrary, despite evidence showing the futility of some technologies like the photo-based attendance app and opacity of complex payment systems, the new Act seems to strengthen these,” it said.
The statement gave an example. It said mandating biometric attendance at worksites is likely to result in denial of work and wages. It is essential that digital systems be complemented by strong, clearly defined offline counterparts. Workers must be able to demand work, mark attendance, resolve grievances, and access payments through accessible non-digital mechanisms.
“Technology should function as an enabling and supportive tool—not as the sole gateway to employment, wages, or accountability,” it added.
According to the researchers, over reliance on digital mediums in MGNREGA has weakened offline verification and local problem-solving, leading to dilution of accountability. The mandatory use of technology has exacerbated issues such as delayed payment, leading to order deletions and other forms of exclusion resulting from opaque digital systems.
“In the process of improving dashboard metrics, even well-meaning officials may be pushed to digitally exclude workers from accessing their rights. We are concerned that these trends are now being given legal sanction in the VB-GRAMG Act, pushing programme administration further towards an era of “dashboard governance”, the statement said.