Moga: Kapurthala MLA and senior Congress chief Rana Gurjeet Singh right now strongly criticized the Authorities of India for rechristening the Mahatma Gandhi Nationwide Rural Employment Assure Act (MGNREGA) because the Viksit Bharat—Assure for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB–G RAM G) Act, 2025.
Addressing the media in Moga, Rana Gurjeet Singh mentioned that he has no objection to the naming of recent schemes and that the Union authorities is free to introduce as many programmes because it needs below the banner of “Viksit Bharat.” Nevertheless, he objected to what he termed the “stereotyping and dilution” of a landmark welfare laws that has served as a lifeline for rural India for practically 20 years.
The invoice was launched within the Lok Sabha on December 16 and after being handed it has been given presidential nod. The legislation maker reminded that MGNREGA, introduced into power in 2005 and applied from February 2, 2006, assured 100 days of wage employment yearly to each rural family below the Dr. Manmohan Singh led UPA authorities. It was a demand-driven programme that empowered Gram Panchayats to pick out works below the scheme as a part of the Gram Panchayat Growth Plan (GPDP). This decentralized construction, he mentioned, strengthened grassroots democracy and ensured that native improvement priorities had been addressed.
Rana Gurjeet Singh emphasised that throughout the coronavirus pandemic, MGNREGA, together with the Nationwide Meals Safety Act, 2013, performed an important function in stopping large-scale rural misery. Within the monetary yr 2024–25 alone, the scheme generated 286.18 crore person-days of employment, supporting 5.78 crore households and offering work to 7.88 crore people. Girls constituted 58 % of the beneficiaries, whereas 18% belonged to Scheduled Castes and one other 18% to Scheduled Tribes. Moreover, 4.82 lakh individuals with disabilities benefited from the programme.
Criticizing the proposed VB–G RAM G Act, the Kapurthala MLA and former minister in Punjab mentioned it will impose a further monetary burden on already resource-constrained state governments, significantly Punjab, which is going through an acute fiscal disaster.
In Punjab, common work below MGNREGA was round 40 days and the declare of 125 days is meaningless. He provides that the legislation was handed unilaterally with out consulting stakeholder comparable to labour unions and Parliament. He termed the brand new legislation as an assault on federalism as the actual intention is centralisation of energy.
Whereas the legislation guarantees to extend assured employment from 100 to 125 days per yr, he cautioned that this assurance is conditional upon the Union authorities’s budgetary allocations. The VB-G RAM G Act’s financing framework requires states to contribute a good portion (usually 40 %) of scheme prices, marking a significant shift from the earlier Centre-dominated funding below MGNREGA
In contrast to MGNREGA, which was demand-based, the brand new invoice proposes a normative allocation system, the place funds can be allotted to states primarily based on “goal parameters” prescribed within the guidelines. “A crucial query arises,” Rana Gurjeet Singh mentioned, “what occurs if the Union authorities’s estimated allocations are inadequate to offer 125 days of assured employment to rural households?”
He additional questioned why the Centre was reluctant to shoulder its accountability in the direction of the poor when a good portion of taxes, together with GST collected from states, flows into the central exchequer.
Explaining the origins of MGNREGA, Rana Gurjeet Singh recalled that it was launched by the UPA authorities led by the Indian Nationwide Congress to deal with rural unemployment, scale back poverty and misery migration, and supply financial safety to rural households. Earlier than its enactment, rural employment trusted unsure schemes with no authorized assure of labor, leaving farmers, labourers, and landless households weak throughout droughts and lean agricultural seasons.
He concluded by urging the Union authorities to guard the spirit of MGNREGA and be sure that any new laws strengthens, relatively than weakens, rural employment ensures.
