Bengal's panchayat minister Dilip Ghosh on Thursday said that the rural job scheme, held up in the state since March 2022, would resume in Bengal from July 1.
"The VB-G RAM G (the new version of the MGNREGA or the 100 days' job scheme) will start in Bengal from July 1. The verification of 2.56 crore job cards is almost complete, and people will start getting 125 days of jobs from July 1. Before that, people can work under the MGNREGA from this month itself," said Ghosh at the Panchayat Bhavan at Salt Lake on Thursday.
Rural employment law VB-G RAM G or Viksit Bharat — Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), which replaced MGNREGA in 2025, guarantees 125 days of wage employment per rural household annually. MGNREGA used to guarantee 100 days.
Ghosh said that as the work started late in Bengal after the BJP government came to power, a total of 1.5 crore mandays could be created under the scheme till June 30.
"Under the VB-G RAM G, it is expected that a total of ₹12,850 crore would be spent in the ongoing financial year. The Centre and the state will shoulder the expenditure on a 60:40 basis," he said.
The rural job scheme apart, the minister said that the Bengal government was holding discussions with the Centre to restart at the earliest all other rural development schemes that had remained inoperative in the state for the past four years.
"We are holding discussions with the Centre to develop 2,790km of rural roads under the PMGSY (Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana) at an expenditure of ₹2,500 crore. Apart from this, we will start work on the rural housing scheme too. We are carrying out a survey to identify eligible beneficiaries, and this will end on July 20, after which a permanent waiting list will be prepared. Soon after this, beneficiaries would start getting funds according to the list," said the minister.
Several bureaucrats said that this bodes well for Bengal's rural populace. Bengal's rural economy took a beating in the absence of the schemes over the past few years as the Centre had frozen funds flow to the then Trinamool-ruled state, citing misappropriation of funds.
However, implementing the schemes immediately after the formation of the new state government would be easier said than done, cautioned some officials.
"The real problem that the state government would face is preparing the annual plan to undertake projects under the job scheme. The previous government did not prepare the annual plan since the Centre had stopped releasing funds under the job scheme," said an official.
Annual plans have to be approved at the micro level — in gram sabha meetings. However, getting those approved at the gram sabha meetings would be a tough task as elected members of the panchayat system have not been attending the offices since the BJP came to power.
"Trinamool controls more than 95 per cent of the rural bodies. After the BJP came to power, most Trinamool panchayat pradhans stopped attending offices, apprehending agitations. In the absence of pradhans or other rural body members, it is tough to hold gram sabhas," said a senior panchayat department official.
Ghosh also agreed that there were problems on the ground.
"In many areas, pradhans who had unleashed terror in the areas stopped attending their offices (after the BJP won the Assembly polls). Their issues would be looked into later on. But those (pradhans) who are clean are free to run the panchayats. This is the stand of our government," said Ghosh.
"The DMs have been asked to organise the gram sabhas and get the annual plans approved. It has to be done immediately," the minister said.
A section of the officials said that in the gram panchayats, the authority of the elected rural members was much more than that of bureaucrats.
"If elected members don't take part in the activity (meetings), it is really difficult for bureaucrats to get things done," said an official.