The final day of the Parliament’s Winter Session on December 19 ended with a dramatic clash between the opposition parties and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) over the recently passed VB-G RAM G Bill. Opposition parties staged intense protests and an overnight dharna at the Parliament complex following the midnight passage of the VB-G RAM G Bill. The session concluded with both the Lok Sabhaand Rajya Sabhaadjourned sine die amid continued sloganeering.
BJP leader Amit Malviya on Friday said that VB-G RAM G Bill passed by Parliament is not about removing social safety nets but modernising them and asked Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to “educate himself” instead of spreading “misinformation” about the scheme.
Malviya’s comment follows Gandhi’s most recent X post where he accused the government of demolishing 20 years of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in a single day by replacing it with the new job guarantees bill.
Passed on December 18, the ‘Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) 2025 Bill’ aka the VB-G RAM G Bill effectively replaces the longstanding Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme that provided 100 days of guaranteed employment to rural poor in India.
What does the VB-G RAM G Bill propose?
The recently passed VB-G RAM G Bill proposes some major changes in the national rural security system that had been previously facilitated by the MGNREGA scheme. The new bill increases the time period of work guarantee to 125 days from 100 days per rural household for unskilled manual labor.
As per the proposed framework, costs for the new scheme would now be shared between the Centre and the state governments. The proportion would be 90:10 for the northeastern and Himalayan states and 60:40 for all other states and Union territories (UTs) with legislature.
For the UTs without legislature, the whole cost would be borne by the Centre.
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This change contradicts the MGNREGA model where the entire cost for the scheme had been borne by the Centre. Another major change introduced by the bill is that of doing away with the demand driven model of MGNREGA. Previously even if the government had exhausted its allocated budget for the scheme, it could have been called to accommodate additional funds if there was evidence of demand for work.
The new VB-G RAM G Bill effectively ends the centre’s open ended financial tab and provides states with normative allocation, beyond which all expenditure has to be borne by the state governments. The new bill also mandates weekly disbursal of wages, moving away from MGNREGA’s 15-day cycle to provide faster liquidity to workers.
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Rahul Gandhi’s claims against the bill
In his post, Gandhi accused the BJP government of weakening the only support rural poor in India enjoyed from the government by demolishing a rights-based, demand-driven guarantee by turning it into a rationed scheme which is controlled from Delhi.
“MGNREGA gave the rural worker bargaining power. We saw what MGNREGA meant during COVID. When the economy shut down and livelihoods collapsed, it kept crores from falling into hunger and debt.” Gandhi posted on X.
“It helped women the most – year after year, women have contributed more than half the person-days. When you ration a jobs programme, it is women, Dalits, Adivasis, landless workers and the poorest OBC communities who get pushed out first,” he added.
BJP’s response
In response, Malviya said that VB-G RAM-G focuses on productive, village-centric asset creation, unlike MGNREGA, “which often prioritises short-term wage distribution over durable outcomes.”
Malviya admitted that while MGNREGA was introduced with the intention of providing employment security to rural India, it had become outdated due to corruption.
The model also introduces “strict” accountability and transparency mechanisms, including real-time digital tracking, geo-tagged assets, direct benefit transfers, and community audits, he said. This “drastically” reduces leakages and political misuse that have plagued MGNREGA, the BJP leader asserted.
“VB-G RAM-G emphasises skill-linked employment instead of repetitive unskilled labour. Rural youth are trained while they work, increasing employability and enabling transition to higher-value livelihoods beyond daily wage dependence,” Malviya concluded. |
