A bill to repeal the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and introduce a new rural employment law called the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB–G RAM G) Bill, 2025 is set to be introduced in the Lok Sabha.

The bill has been listed in the Lok Sabha in the supplementary list of business issued on Monday.

According to a copy of the bill, it seeks to introduce the VB–G RAM G Bill, 2025, in Parliament and repeal the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005. The proposed legislation aims to establish a “rural development framework aligned with the national vision of Viksit Bharat 2047” by providing 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.

The move has triggered strong criticism from Opposition leaders, who allege that the proposed law weakens the rights-based framework of the MGNREGA while shifting the financial burdens to the states.

“VB–G RAM G Bill repealing MGNREGA: removing Mahatma Gandhi was only the trailer. The real damage is deeper,” John Brittas, Rajya Sabha MP from the CPM, wrote on X (formerly Twitter),

“Govt removed the soul of a rights-based guarantee law and replaced it with a conditional, centrally controlled scheme stacked against States & workers,” he wrote.

He outlined what he saw as the problem areas of the bill.

“‘125 days’ is the headline. 60:40 is the fine print - MGNREGA was a fully centrally funded one for unskilled wages; G RAM G downgrades it with States to bear 40%. States will now have to shell out around Rs. 50,000+ crore. Kerala alone will have to bear an additional 2,000–2,500 crore. Cost-shifting by stealth, not reform. This is the new federalism: States pay more, Centre walks away, yet claims the credit,” Brittas added.

He alleged that the demand-driven nature of the MGNREGA would be diluted under the new framework.

“MGNREGA was demand-driven: if a worker asked for work, the Centre had to pay - G RAM G replaces this with Centre’s pre-fixed normative allocations & ceilings. When funds run out, rights run out. A legal employment guarantee is reduced to a centrally managed publicity scheme at the expense of States,” he said.

Brittas criticised the proposed technological framework.

“Panchayats sidelined, dashboards empowered - MGNREGA trusted Gram Sabhas & Panchayats to plan works based on local needs - G RAM G mandates GIS tools, PM Gati Shakti layers & central digital stacks. Local priorities are filtered through a Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack. It makes biometrics, geo-tagging, dashboards & AI audits statutory. For millions of rural workers, tech failures mean exclusion without appeal. Decentralisation replaced by centralised templates; People become data points.”

He termed as “worse” a provision allowing suspension of work for up to 60 days annually “in the name” of agricultural seasons.

“Employment guarantee or labour control? Scheme labourers are legally told: Don’t work. Don’t earn. Wait. Stopping public works to push labour into private farms is not welfare – it is state-managed labour supply, stripping workers of wages, choice and dignity,” he said.

“G RAM G stands for central control, State funds & conditional rights. Same workers. Less rights. More burden. This Bill doesn’t reform MGNREGA – it dismantles it fiscally, institutionally and morally,” Brittas added.

“Bottom line: In the name of RAM, the States and poor are penalised, short-changed and fiscally sacrificed,” he said, reiterating, “VB–G RAM G Bill repealing MGNREGA: removing Mahatma Gandhi was only the trailer. The real damage is deeper. In the name of RAM, the States and poor are penalised, short-changed and fiscally sacrificed.”

Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra questioned the rationale behind removing Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme.

“Whenever the name of a scheme is changed there are so many changes that have to be made in offices, stationery... for which money is spent. So, what is the benefit, why it is being done,” she asked when reporters quizzed her in the Parliament House complex.

“Why is Mahatma Gandhi's name being removed. Mahatma Gandhi is considered the tallest leader not just in the country but in the world, so removing his name, I really don't understand what is the objective? What is their intention?

“Even when we are debating, it is on other issues – not the real issues of the people. Time is being wasted, money is being wasted, they are disrupting themselves,” Priyanka added.

Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka, who chairs the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, said the panel made several recommendations, including that for increasing the number of workdays and wages under the rural-jobs scheme.

"When they (BJP) came to power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called it a scheme for digging pits... It was always their intention to end MGNREGS," Ulaka told PTI Videos.

"I don't know what problem they have with the name of Bapu, but they wanted to finish it because it was a Congress scheme,” he added.

“We made so many recommendations -- to increase the number of days to 150, to increase the wages... the states have pending dues, West Bengal is not getting funds. They have brought a bill, but why have they removed the name of Mahatma Gandhi?"

Senior Trinamool leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien termed the move “an insult to Mahatma Gandhi.”

“But then, are you surprised! These are the same people who hero-worshipped the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi. They want to insult Mahatma Gandhi and remove him from history,” he said.

CPM general-secretary M.A. Baby called the proposed revamp an attempt to conceal the dismantling of the scheme.

“The Union government's grandstanding over a total revamp of the MGNREGS is an attempt to hide the startling fact that the basic rights-based framework under which it operated is being dismantled, and the central share brought down drastically,” he claimed.

“The buck is being passed on to states, and the Centre can now punish opposition-ruled states by cutting down allocations. It will also codify into law the technological interventions through which lakhs of people are being deprived of their entitlements,” Baby said.

Terming the move “reckless” and linking it to the recent notification of what he called “draconian” labour codes, he said it would “worsen rural distress and is totally condemnable.”

“We will fight tooth and nail against this disastrous move both inside and outside Parliament,” Baby added.

The MGNREGA, enacted in 2005 and renamed in 2009, guarantees up to 100 days of wage employment for unskilled labour.

Under the proposed law, another clause has drawn attention.

Section 4(5) of the VB–G RAM G Bill states: “The Central Government shall determine the State-wise normative allocation for each financial year, based on objective parameters as may be prescribed by the Central Government.”

Many pointed out that if the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is used as the parameter, it could adversely impact states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala, with Tamil Nadu’s MPI at 2.20 per cent.

Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, in the statement of purpose of the bill, said the MGNREGA has provided guaranteed wage employment to rural households over the past 20 years.

However, he added that “further strengthening has become necessary in view of the significant socio-economic transformation witnessed in the rural landscape driven by widespread coverage of the social security interventions and saturation-oriented implementation of major government schemes.”