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NEW DELHI: President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday gave her assent to the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025 – which replaces the UPA-era MGNREGA and was passed by Parliament amid protests by opposition – marking a significant shift in the rural employment policy framework.With the presidential assent, it now becomes the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, and a notification in this regard was published in the Gazette of India on Dec 21. The notification states that the new law seeks to “establish a rural development framework aligned with the national vision of Vikshit Bharat@2047” by providing 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.The rural development ministry said, “This enhancement over the earlier 100-day entitlement (under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005) strengthens livelihood security, predictability of work, and income stability for rural households.” Meanwhile, amid mounting attack from opposition parties demanding withdrawal of the bill, rural development minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday in a video message said, “Once again, a conspiracy is underway to mislead the country in the name of MGNREGA” and added that the VB-G RAM G scheme is in favour of the poor and it provides a complete guarantee of employment to workers”. “Misinformation is being spread, whereas the truth is that the new scheme is beyond MGNREGA,” he said on X. “For this scheme, a massive amount of over Rs 1,51, 282 crore has been proposed this year itself, so that there is sufficient money to provide employment…” he added.He highlighted the provision wherein administrative expenses have been increased from 6% to 9%. “If we take out 9% from the proposed amount of Rs 1.51 lakh crore, it comes to Rs 13,000 crore; with this amount, all those who get the work done will receive timely and adequate salaries, so that they can carry out the work with full capacity,” he said.
