President gives nod to VB—G RAM G Bill, 2025

President Droupadi Murmu has given assent to the Viksit Bharat—Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB—G RAM G) Bill, 2025, thus paving the way for a new statutory rural employment framework that replaces the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. This marks a significant milestone in the transformation of India’s rural employment and development framework.

The Act enhances the statutory wage employment guarantee to 125 days per financial year for rural households and seeks to advance empowerment, inclusive growth, convergence of development initiatives and saturation-based delivery, thereby strengthening the foundation for a prosperous, resilient and self-reliant Rural Bharat.

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The VB G Ram G Bill was passed in Parliament amid strong protests by the Opposition over the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the existing rural employment guarantee scheme, MGNREGA, and accusing the government of putting the financial burden on States.

Anchored in the principles of empowerment, growth, convergence and saturation, the Act seeks to transform rural employment from a standalone welfare intervention into an integrated instrument of development.

Salient Features of the Act

Enhanced Statutory Employment Guarantee: The Act provides a statutory guarantee of not less than 125 days of wage employment per rural household in each financial year to households whose adult members volunteer to undertake unskilled manual work (Section 5(1)). This enhancement over the earlier 100-day entitlement significantly strengthens livelihood security, predictability of work, and income stability for rural households.

To facilitate adequate availability of agricultural labour during peak sowing and harvesting seasons, the Act empowers States to notify an aggregated pause period aggregating to sixty days in a financial year (Section 6).

The full 125-day employment guarantee remains intact, to be provided during the remaining period, ensuring a calibrated balance that supports both agricultural productivity and worker security.

Timely Wage Payments: The Act mandates payment of wages on a weekly basis or, in any case, within 15 days of completion of work (Section 5(3)). In cases of delay beyond the stipulated period, delay compensation shall be payable in accordance with the provisions laid down in Schedule II, reinforcing wage security and protecting workers from delays.

Employment Linked with Productive Rural Infrastructure: Wage employment under the Act is explicitly aligned with the creation of durable public assets across four priority thematic domains: Water security and water-related works, Core rural infrastructure, Livelihood-related infrastructure, and Works to mitigate extreme weather events.

The Act is implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, to be notified and operationalised by the State Governments in accordance with the provisions of the Act.

The cost-sharing pattern is 60:40 between the Centre and States, 90:10 for North Eastern and Himalayan States, and 100 per cent central funding for Union Territories without legislatures.

Funding is provided through State-wise normative allocations based on objective parameters prescribed in the Rules (Sections 4(5) and 22(4)), ensuring predictability, fiscal discipline, and sound planning, while fully preserving statutory entitlements to employment and unemployment allowance.

All works are planned through a bottom-up process, and all assets created are aggregated into the Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack, ensuring convergence of public investments, avoidance of fragmentation, and outcome-based planning aimed at saturation of critical rural infrastructure, based on varying local needs, according to a Ministry of Rural Development statement said on Sunday.