Congress dubs VB-G RAM-G Act 'rozgar adhikar chori', hits out at Centre

New Delhi,UPDATED: Jul 8, 2026 12:16 IST

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday attacked the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, calling it "Rozgar Adhikar chori" and alleging that it has replaced MGNREGA with a highly centralised scheme that puts a heavy financial burden on state governments.

Sharing an article by former Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Haseeb Drabu, Ramesh said the new law had taken the place of a scheme that gave rural households a legal right to work.

The VB G RAM G Act came into force across the country on July 1, replacing the two-decade-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act introduced by the Congress-led UPA.

In a post on X, Ramesh said, "Haseeb Drabu, one of India's finest economists and the former Finance Minister of J&K, has written a very incisive article exposing the realities of the VB G RAM G that has been bulldozed through to replace the transformational MGNREGA."

He added, "VB G RAM G is really Rozgar Adhikar chori. It replaces a Constitutional right to work that has empowered gram panchayats with a highly centralised scheme that places an intolerably heavy financial burden on state governments."

Ramesh also claimed that the new law brings in technology "not to facilitate but to exclude". He further said it is not available through the year in the way MGNREGA was.

In his article in an English daily, Drabu said MGNREGA, now renamed the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), was a rights-based and demand-driven scheme that gave households a legal entitlement to 100 days of unskilled work.

He said it has now been converted into a formula-driven, centrally determined transfer.

When the VB G RAM G Act came into effect last Wednesday, the Congress demanded that the rural employment scheme be repealed and that a strengthened MGNREGA be brought back.

The party said the wages under the new law are unjustifiably low. It also said a just minimum wage for India's workers should be ensured by adopting the 2019 recommendation of the expert committee headed by Dr Anoop Satpathy and factoring in the rise in prices since then.

The Congress has therefore stepped up its criticism of the new law, with Ramesh and Drabu arguing that it has replaced MGNREGA's rights-based framework with a centralised model, while the party has also raised concerns over wages and sought the return of a strengthened MGNREGA.

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