The VB-G RAM G Act kicked in countrywide from July 1 but Bengal villagers, left without work under the now-obsolete MGNREGA for over four years, fear their wait might continue.
Their biggest problem is that the Trinamool-backed panchayat members have fled the villages in numbers for fear of attacks since the party’s ouster from power in Bengal, leaving the gram panchayats defunct, social activists say.
As with the old MGNREGA, it’s the gram panchayats’ job to accept demands for work and decide the projects under the new scheme, which promises 125 days of paid, unskilled work a year to every rural family.
Another issue is Bengal’s laggardness in registering its workers for e-KYC, the process of linking job cards, including the old MGNREGA ones, to the holders’ photos and Aadhaar, without which they cannot get work under the new scheme.
The Purulia district magistrate recently declared that 75 per cent of the district’s MGNREGA job card holders were e-KYC compliant, said Anuradha Talwar, state committee member of the Paschim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samity, a civil society body working for implementation of the job scheme in Bengal.
In most other states, the registration is close to 100 per cent.
Talwar cited another, possibly pan-Indian, issue: Complaints of malfunctioning against the NREGA Mobile Monitoring System app that takes workers’ on-site pictures to register daily attendance.
Bengal had been deprived of MGNREGA work since December 2021, with the Centre stopping funds alleging irregularities in the scheme’s implementation in the state.
On a petition from the Samity, Calcutta High Court had last year directed the Centre to resume work under the scheme in Bengal from August 1, 2025. But the scheme was not resumed, apparently because the then Trinamool government had delayed submitting the labour budget.
The VB-G RAM G was enacted, replacing the MGNREGA, late last year. Bengal’s new BJP government has promised to implement it.
“But in the absence of panchayat representatives, gram panchayat meetings are not taking place. That’s a major reason for the VB-G RAM G remaining defunct in Bengal,” Talwar said.
She said gram panchayat laws allowed extraordinary meetings to be held by prominent, unelected villagers, if necessary. Her organisation has asked its members to try and get such meetings held to decide projects under the job scheme.
The Centre on Sunday released ₹25,863 crore to the states under the 125-day job scheme.