Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday criticised the government’s proposed bill to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), warning that it would weaken the law’s assurance of 100 days of employment for the poorest households.
Speaking to reporters in the Parliament House complex, the Congress general secretary also questioned what she described as the Modi government’s “obsession” with renaming welfare schemes.
"Firstly, the process of renaming schemes costs a lot of money to the country, so I don't understand why they are doing it," she said.
Priyanka Gandhi argued that while MGNREGA guaranteed 100 days of employment, the new bill undermines that right.
She said the government had added provisions that only superficially suggest an increase in workdays. "But has the wage rate been increased?" she asked.
"For so many years, you (government) have been reducing funds for MGNREGA, wherever one goes, labourers will say money has not come," she said.
She also raised concerns over the shifting of decision-making powers away from local bodies.
Earlier, gram panchayats decided the nature of work under the scheme, but the new bill transfers that authority to the Centre, including decisions on fund allocation, she said.
"So the right of the gram panchayat to decide where to allocate funds and where to get the work done is being snatched away. So from all perspectives we feel this bill is wrong," Priyanka Gandhi said.
The Congress has strongly objected to the bill that seeks to replace MGNREGA. It said erasing Mahatma Gandhi's name shows how "hollow and hypocritical" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's gestures of paying homage to the Father of the Nation are.
The opposition party has alleged that the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025, "attacks the soul" of rights-based guarantee by replacing it with a scheme "stacked against" the states and the workers and defies the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi.
The bill is set to be introduced in the Lok Sabha during the ongoing Winter session of Parliament.
According to a copy of the bill, it will provide a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment in every financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to undertake unskilled manual work.
Within six months from the date of commencement of the VB-G RAM G Act, states will have to make a scheme consistent with the provisions of the new law.
The financial liability would be shared between the Centre and the state governments. It would be 90:10 for the Northeastern states and Himalayan states, and 60:40 for all other states and Union territories with legislature. For the UTs without a legislature, the whole cost would be borne by the Centre.
The MGNREGS is a 100 per cent centrally sponsored scheme.
"The scheme, which will now be known as the Viksit Bharat Guarantee For Rozgar And Ajeevika Mission (Grameen), attacks the soul of a rights-based guarantee and replaces it with a conditional, centrally controlled scheme stacked against the states and workers," the party said.