From Constitutional Right to Centrally Controlled Mission
MGNREGA’s Unfinished Promise and the Path Not Taken
Does the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, reform MGNREGA—or quietly dismantle India’s constitutional Right to Work? By replacing a demand-driven employment guarantee rooted in Article 41 with a centrally controlled, budget-capped mission, the new law shifts power away from workers, states, and Gram Sabhas. While it promises more workdays on paper, selective area notification, higher state cost-sharing, top-down planning, mandatory seasonal work bans, and technology-heavy controls risk turning a legal right into a discretionary scheme, weakening federalism, local democracy, and rural livelihoods. An analysis of how the new law weakens the constitutional Right to Work, federalism, and rural democracy.
MGNREGA vs. VB-G RAM G: Reform or Rollback?
The government has recently enacted the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-G RAM G Act), 2025. This Act has been introduced to replace MGNREGA, which was implemented in 2005 to provide a 100-day employment guarantee to unskilled rural workers. By making major changes to the provisions of MGNREGA, this Act seeks to end the rights-based approach to employment.
Article 41 of the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution clearly states that "The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work". MGNREGA was introduced as the statutory realisation of this constitutional directive and imperative. However, the provisions of the new Act appear to fail in giving statutory shape to this directive principle. By shifting from a demand-driven legal entitlement to a centrally controlled mission, this Act rolls back the constitutional imperative and reduces the 'guarantee of rozgar' to merely another scheme.
The Erosion of Universal Rights
Section 5(1) of the Act states, "the State Government shall, in such rural areas in the State as notified by the Central Government, provide to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work, not less than 125 days of guaranteed employment". Although the guaranteed employment in this Bill has been increased from 100 days to 125 days, this appears to be an expansion of work only on paper. Past experiences with MGNREGA show the 100-day limit often functioned as a "hard ceiling," so people rarely received the full quota of work.
Furthermore, if the Central Government does not notify a rural area, the people of that area will not have any Right to Work. This provision significantly increases the discretionary power of the Union Government, effectively reducing a universally guaranteed entitlement to a scheme run at its mercy.
Fiscal Federalism Under Threat
Section 22(2) of the VB-G RAM G Act provides that “the fund-sharing pattern between the Central Government and the State Governments shall be 90:10 for the North Eastern States, Himalayan States and Union territory (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir) and 60:40 for all other States and Union territories with legislature”.
Before this, the Central Government was responsible for 100% of the labour wages and 75% of the material costs. In practice, this translates to a 90:10 cost share between the Centre and the States. The introduction of this new 60:40 clause places a massive financial burden on states, particularly impacting poorer and high migrant-sending states that are most in need of rural employment. This shift will likely aggravate rural distress and increase the Centre's control over disbursements while simultaneously limiting its own liabilities and responsibilities.
From Demand-Driven Rights to Supply-Driven Mandates
MGNREGA maintained a demand-driven approach where, if work was not provided within 15 days of demanding it, the worker was entitled to an unemployment allowance. However, under the VB-G RAM G Act, employment generation will now occur through pre-approved "Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans," which are integrated into block, district, state, and national-level infrastructure frameworks.
This structural shift is further constrained by the new funding mechanism. Section 4(5) of the VB-G RAM G Act 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. Furthermore, Section 4(6) provides that “Any expenditure incurred by a State in excess of its normative allocation shall be borne by the State Government in such manner and by such procedure as may be prescribed by the Central Government”.
The Bill does not lay down any core standards or parameters on which this normative allocation shall be made. This enables the Union Government to arbitrarily decide the quantum of funds allocated to states, which in turn will determine the number of employment days and fresh job cards that can be issued. By turning a legal entitlement into a budget-capped mission, the Act directly impacts the "Right to Livelihood," which the judiciary has interpreted as an integral part of the Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Bottom-Up Planning to Top-Down Control
Schedule 1, Clause 6(4) of the VB-G RAM G Act states that the “Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack shall guide States, Districts and Panchayati Raj Institutions in identifying priority infrastructure gaps, standardising work designs, and ensuring that public investments contribute measurably to saturation outcomes at the Gram Panchayat, Block and District levels”.
This provision, along with the Preamble’s focus on “saturation-driven planning” through “Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans,” fundamentally subverts the 73rd Constitutional Amendment. The VB-G RAM G Act narrows the scope of permissible works into just four vertical domains: water security, core rural infrastructure, livelihood-related assets, and climate resilience. Previously, under MGNREGA, Gram Sabhas had the flexibility to plan works based on local needs. By imposing a predefined, centralized priority system through the "National Infrastructure Stack," the Act eliminates the local autonomy that allowed Panchayats to respond effectively to the specific requirements of their communities.
Mandatory Blackouts
Under MGNREGA, rural residents held the right to demand and obtain work at any time of the year. However, Section 6(2) of the VB-G RAM G Act states, “The State Governments shall notify in advance, a period aggregating to sixty days in a financial year, covering the peak agricultural seasons of sowing and harvesting, during which works under this Act, shall not be undertaken”.
This provision creates a legally mandated "blackout period" that will disproportionately impact women workers who rely on consistent wage employment. Such blanket restrictions undermine the flexibility of the rural labour market and ignore regional variations in cropping patterns. Historically, MGNREGA demand has naturally fluctuated according to the agricultural cycle, with workers opting for farm work when wages are higher. By mandating a pause, the Act reduces the workers' choice and bargaining power, effectively creating a surplus of cheap labour for the industrial and large-scale agricultural sectors to exploit. This provision is clearly anti-poor and seems to have been incorporated to serve the interests of big landlords. It is also a mockery of democracy.
Technocratic Barriers and the Digital Divide
Workers’ organisations have repeatedly highlighted widespread exclusions resulting from the imposition of opaque, arbitrary technologies in MGNREGA, such as digital attendance through the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) and Aadhaar-Based Payment Systems (ABPS). These technologies are already creating an additional exclusionary layer for rural workers.
The VB-G RAM G Act seeks to further deepen this crisis by mandating a framework rooted in top-down, technology-driven surveillance. The Bill mandates the use of biometric authentication for workers and functionaries, along with geospatial technology and the geo-referencing of all works. Biometric authentication is particularly fraught with problems for agricultural and manual labourers, as physical toil often makes fingerprint recognition unreliable. By making these technologies mandatory, the Bill creates significant hurdles for unskilled workers who lack digital exposure, turning a right-based entitlement into a technocratic obstacle course.
The VB-G RAM G Act undermines two decades of sustained struggle by workers and weakens their constitutional and democratic rights. The Right to Work cannot be replaced by discretionary doles. During the COVID-19 pandemic, MGNREGA served as a lifeline for migrant workers; therefore, its budget should not be capped or cut. To ensure effective implementation, it is essential to maintain its decentralised nature, which was the true vision of our constitutional makers.
If the government had instead concentrated on removing corruption from the implementation of MGNREGA, it would have benefited the workers the most and additionally created valuable rural assets. MGNREGA had an inbuilt mechanism of Social Audit, a revolutionary idea to check corruption, which was unfortunately not fully utilised. The government could have activated this provision. However, the priority of the government doesn’t seem to be the welfare of workers.
By Ratanja Yadav and Sandeep Pandey
Note: Ratanja Yadav is a Doctoral student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Sandeep Pandey is Secretary General of Socialist Party (India).
