Q1. What is the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025?
The Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (Viksit Bharat- G RAM G) Bill, 2025 reforms the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), 2005 and builds a modern framework aligned with Viksit Bharat 2047. It guarantees 125 days of wage employment per rural household for adults willing to do unskilled manual work. Along with employment, it focuses on creating strong and lasting rural infrastructure through four priority verticals, which are Water security, Core-rural infrastructure, Livelihood-related infrastructure, and Special works to handle extreme weather. All created assets are integrated into the Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack, ensuring a unified and coordinated national development strategy.
Q2. How is the new Bill different from MGNREGA? What makes it better than MNREGA?
The new Bill represents a significant improvement over MGNREGA by addressing structural limitations. Key improvements include:
• Higher Employment Guarantee: Work guarantee increased from 100 to 125 days.
• Strong Infrastructure Focus: Unlike MGNREGA, the Bill now focuses on four key areas—water security, core rural infrastructure, livelihood infrastructure, and climate resilience—to create durable assets.
• Local, Spatially Integrated Planning: Gram Panchayats will prepare their own development plans, which will be linked to national spatial systems like PM Gati-Shakti for better coordination.
Q3. How will the new scheme benefit the rural economy?
The new scheme would strengthen the rural economy by promoting productive asset creation, higher incomes, and improved resilience. Its key contributions include:
• Water Security: Focus on water projects, building on Mission Amrit Sarovar’s 68,000+ revived water bodies to support farming and recharge groundwater.
• Core Rural Infrastructure: Better roads, connectivity, and basic services to boost rural economic activity.
• Livelihood Infrastructure: Storage, markets, and production assets to diversify incomes and add value.
• Climate Resilience: Works like water harvesting, flood control, and soil conservation provide added ability to communities to overcome climate risks.
• Higher Employment and Consumption: 125 days of guaranteed work increases household income and consumption in rural areas.
• Reduced Distress Migration: Stronger local employment and durable assets reduce migration.
• Digital Formalisation: Digital attendance, direct payments, and data-based planning improve efficiency and accountability.
Q4. How will the new scheme benefit farmers?
Farmers will benefit directly from this scheme through improved labour availability and strengthened agricultural infrastructure. Key advantages include:
• Guaranteed Labour Availability: States can pause scheme work for up to 60 days in peak farming seasons to ensure enough labour for sowing and harvesting.
• Prevention of Wage Inflation: Suspending public works during peak agricultural periods avoids artificial wage inflation, thereby saving food production costs.
• Water and Irrigation Assets: Priority on water and irrigation assets, backed by 68,000+ water bodies from Mission Amrit Sarovar, supporting multi-season cropping.
• Improved Connectivity and Storage: Improved Infrastructure and storage reduce losses and improve market access.
• Climate Resilience: Works on drainage, water harvesting, and soil conservation protect crops from climate risks.
Q5. How will the new scheme benefit labourers?
Labourers will benefit from the new scheme through higher guaranteed employment, improved earnings, strong safeguards, and transparent systems. Key gains include:
• Higher Income: The guarantee of 125 days of employment offers up to 25% higher potential earnings.
• Predictable Work Availability: Hyperlocal Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans ensure more predictable access to employment.
• Digital Payments and Protection: Wage payments remain fully electronic (already at 99.94% in 2024–25) with biometric and Aadhaar-based verification, eliminating wage delays and leakages.
• Unemployment Allowance: States are required to pay an unemployment allowance if work is not provided within the stipulated time.
• Shared Benefits from Asset Creation: Labourers benefit directly from the creation of improved roads, water systems, and livelihood-supporting assets.
Q6. Why is there a need to change MGNREGA now?
A need was felt to bring a change in the MNREGA scheme due to the following reasons:
• Changed Rural Context: MGNREGA was designed for the realities of rural India in 2005, but the rural economy has since undergone significant transformation.
• Sharp Decline in Poverty: Poverty levels declined from 25.7% in 2011–12 to 4.86% in 2023–24, supported by higher consumption, rising incomes, and improved financial access, as reflected in MPCE and NABARD RECSS surveys.
• Evolving Rural Economy: With stronger social protection systems, improved connectivity, expanded digital access, and more diversified rural livelihoods, the earlier framework no longer aligned with current rural conditions.
The Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (Viksit Bharat–G RAM G) Bill modernises the employment guarantee system by increasing assured workdays, refocusing priorities, and establishing a more accountable, targeted, and relevant framework for today’s rural economy.
Q7. Why do we need a shift from demand-based to normative funding?
The Viksit Bharat–G RAM G Bill adopts a normative funding approach in order to align with the standard budgeting model followed by most Government of India schemes, without diluting the employment guarantee. Unlike a purely demand-driven model, which often results in unpredictable allocations and budgeting mismatches, normative funding relies on objective parameters. This enables stable and realistic planning while ensuring that every eligible worker is either provided employment or paid an unemployment allowance.
Q8. Would normative funding weaken the guarantee of 125 days?
No, normative funding does not weaken the guarantee of 125 days. In fact, the guarantee is strengthened, with the number of assured employment days increased to 125. In addition, there are following provisions:
• Improved Forecasting Accuracy: Experience in FY 2024–25 demonstrated that allocations can closely match actual demand.
• Shared Responsibility: Both the Centre and the States share responsibility for ensuring the provision of employment under the scheme.
• Flexibility During Emergencies: Special relaxations are permitted during natural disasters and other exceptional circumstances.
• Mandatory Unemployment Allowance: If employment is not provided as required, States are legally obligated to pay an unemployment allowance.
Q9. Were any steps taken earlier to improve MGNREGA?
Major improvements in the MNREGA scheme have been introduced over time but issues like fund misuse, weak digital monitoring, and poor asset quality continued, showing its structural challenges. Key gains from these improvements include:
Indicator FY 2013–14 FY 2025–26
Women’s participation 48% 56.74%
Aadhaar-seeded active workers 76 lakh 12.11 crore
Workers covered under APBS 0 11.93 crore
Geo-tagged assets 0 6.44 crore+
Electronic payments 37% 99.99%
Individual asset creation 17.6% 62.96%
Despite these advances, issues such as misappropriation persisted, digital attendance systems were sometimes bypassed, and asset quality or outcomes did not always align with expenditure levels. The scale and persistence of these challenges indicated that the underlying architecture of MNREGA had reached its limits. This necessitated a comprehensive redesign through the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (Viksit Bharat–G RAM G) Bill to create a more modern, accountable, and outcome-oriented framework.
Q10. What were the problems with MNREGA that necessitated a change?
Despite repeated efforts to improve implementation, several systemic weaknesses continued to persist in the MNREGA scheme, like:
• Serious Irregularities in Implementation: Investigations in 19 districts of West Bengal revealed non-existent works, procedural violations, and misuse of funds, resulting in a freeze on the programme in the state.
• Widespread Monitoring Gaps: During the monitoring of 23 states in the FY 2025–26, it was found that many projects either did not exist on-site or did not match the expenditures incurred. In several locations, machines were used for tasks intended to be labour-intensive. Additionally, the system for recording attendance through NMMS (National Mobile Monitoring System) was largely bypassed.
• Continued Misappropriation and Limited Coverage: In FY 2024–25, misappropriation amounted to ₹193.67 crore across states, while only 7.61% of households completed the full 100 days of employment in the post-pandemic period.
Persistent issues such as leakages, weak verification, and poor compliance demonstrated the limits of incremental reform. The Viksit Bharat–G RAM G Bill responds by establishing a clean, digitally governed, accountable, and infrastructure-focused system.
Q11. What are the transparency and social protection measures included in the new Bill?
Transparency and social protection measures included in the new bill are as follows:
• AI-based fraud detection system.
• Central and State Steering Committees for oversight.
• Focus on four key verticals for rural development.
• Enhanced monitoring role of Panchayats.
• GPS or mobile-based monitoring.
• Real-time MIS dashboards.
• Weekly public disclosures.
• Stronger social audits, conducted twice a year for every Gram Panchayat.
Q12. Why was there a need to shift from a central sector to a centrally sponsored scheme?
As the rural employment is inherently local, the new Bill adopts a shared Centre–State responsibility model:
• Shared cost and responsibility: States now share both financial responsibility and accountability for implementation.
• Stronger incentives to prevent misuse: Cost-sharing encourages closer supervision and better compliance at the state level.
• Region-specific planning: Gram Panchayat Plans enable works to be tailored to local and regional conditions.
• Clear division of roles: The Centre sets standards and norms, while States execute programmes.
• Improved outcomes: This partnership-based approach enhances efficiency and reduces misuse.
Q13. Will this responsibility shift burden states financially?
No, the new structure will not burden the states financially since it is balanced and sensitive to varying state capacities. Key points to note in this regard are:
• Standard cost-sharing ratio: 60:40 between the Centre and States.
• Special category support: North-Eastern and Himalayan States and Union Territories follow a 90:10 ratio.
• Full central funding: Union Territories without a legislature receive 100 per cent central funding.
• Existing state contribution: States already bear 25 per cent of material costs.
• Predictable allocations: Normative funding enables more reliable and efficient budgeting by States.
• Disaster flexibility: States may seek additional support during natural disasters or emergencies.
• Reduced long-term losses: Stronger oversight mechanisms help minimise losses arising from misappropriation.
Q14. Why is a 60-day no-work period mandated, and what happens to workers then?
The 60-day no-work period ensures enough labour for sowing and harvesting, prevents wage inflation, and controls food costs. These 60 days are aggregated and don’t have to be continuous. Workers still get 125 workdays within the rest of the year. This benefits both farmers and rural workers.
