MGNREGA to VB ‘G RAM G’ : Economists, activists oppose proposed legislation

EConomists and societal rights on midweek opposed the Centre’s proposed Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika missionary post (Gramin) (VB ‘G pound G’) greenback, 2025, which seeks to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), and called for a nationwide protest against the legislation on December 19.At a press conference at the Press Club of India in New Delhi, the speakers said the proposed bill weakens MGNREGA’s core promise of a guaranteed right to work, turning a legal entitlement into a government-run scheme that depends on the Centre’s discretion.The press conference was led by economists Jean Dreze, Prabhat Patnaik and Jayati Ghosh, along with political workers Yogendra Yadav and Annie Raja, and labour leaders B Venkat of the All India Agricultural Workers’ Union (AIAWU) and Mukesh Nirvasit of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan (MKSS).“Even if the Bill gets passed in the parliament, we will protest till it gets repealed, just as the farmers have struggled in an exemplary and inspiring manner for a year until the Farmers’ Bills were repealed,” said Dreze.The proposed VB ‘G RAM G’ Bill increases guaranteed work from 100 to 125 days per rural household but changes how the scheme works. Instead of being a legal right where work must be given on demand, it will become a government-run programme funded jointly by the Centre and states in a 60-40 ratio.The speakers said the Bill gives the Centre discretion over which areas get work, how much money each state receives, and allows work to stop for up to two months a year. They also objected to shifting more costs to states, replacing local planning with top-down central control, and expanding technology-driven monitoring.Dreze said MGNREGA is “a law of the people, for the people, and by the people,” achieved after years of struggle. He cautioned the new Bill “repeals” it, handing sweeping powers to the Centre. He flagged a “switch off” clause that allows the Centre to decide whether the scheme will run at all, noting similar powers were fought and removed when MGNREGA was first enacted 20 years ago.Economist Jayati Ghosh said the Bill marked a shift away from citizens’ rights towards state-controlled welfare. “I want to highlight 2 aspects of this new changed bill… which I think is possibly a first even in Indian legislative history,” she said. Rights-based laws were meant to recognise “the rights of citizens and the responsibilities of the state,” but such entitlements are now being turned into “a gift from the state,” she argued.