“CLAIMING that 125 days of employment will be guaranteed after dismantling MGNREGA is no different from cutting down a tree and promising shade.”

For the past two decades, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act MGNREGA) has served as a minimum livelihood safeguard for crores of rural poor, agricultural labourers, women, Dalits, and Adivasis across the country. The Central Government has now moved to replace MGNREGA with a new scheme, VB-GRAMG, effective from July 1, through the Draft Rules (GSR 403(E)) issued for its implementation.

A close examination of these Draft Rules reveals that while the new scheme weakens the employment guarantee itself, the Rules are designed to destroy it altogether. The new framework consists of more than 55 major clauses, rules, hundreds of sub-rules, and an entirely new administrative architecture. This system has not been designed to strengthen the employment guarantee; it has been designed to completely undermine its rights-based character.

THE FUNDING CONTRADICTION

The Government is propagating the idea that it is expanding the employment guarantee from 100 days to 125 days. But no employment programme survives on promises; it survives on funding. It is here that the first major contradiction emerges. While claiming to provide 125 days of employment, the Central Government has allocated only ₹95,000 crore for the new scheme in the Budget. State-wise employment statistics demonstrate that this allocation is nowhere near sufficient to guarantee 125 days of work. According to government data, the average number of workdays generated during the previous year stood at:

Kerala: 57.81 days

Telangana: 50.24 days

Tamil Nadu: 48.54 days

West Bengal: 44.12 days

Andhra Pradesh: 42.35 days

Bihar: 30.94 days

Uttar Pradesh: 27.50 days

Madhya Pradesh: 25.66 days

Maharashtra: 14.40 days

Haryana: 13.78 days

When the Government is unable to provide even 15 to 50 days of work effectively under existing conditions, how can it suddenly guarantee 125 days of employment with an allocation of merely ₹95,000 crore?

THE MATHEMATICS OF DECEPTION

The real face of the Modi Government is exposed in Rule 4(3). Implementing a genuine 125-day employment guarantee would require massive additional financial resources. While the Central Government presents the 125-day guarantee as a historic advance, it refuses to assume responsibility for providing the resources necessary to make it a reality.

Data from 17 major states (excluding the North-Eastern states and Union Territories) shows that there are 7.69 crore active job cards. Providing 125 days of employment to workers under the employment guarantee programme in these states would require a total expenditure of approximately ₹3.61 lakh crore. However, the allocation proposed by the Central Government for these states is only ₹85,605 crore. Even after adding the 40 percent contribution expected from the states (amounting to ₹57,071 crore), the total available resources come to only ₹1.43 lakh crore. With these limited resources, only an average of 48.5 workdays can be provided in a year. In Haryana, workers would receive only about 23 days of employment, while in Maharashtra, they would get only about 24 days.

In other words, there is a shortfall of more than ₹2.18 lakh crore compared to what is actually required to guarantee 125 days of employment. The Rules categorically state that no additional funds will be provided by the Centre beyond the amount already allocated.

Shifting the Burden to the States

The most alarming aspect is that the burden of filling this ₹2.18 lakh crore gap is effectively being shifted onto the states. In simple terms:
Modi Government's share: around ₹85,000 crore (barely 30 percent).
State Governments' share: nearly ₹2.75 lakh crore (nearly 70 percent).
These figures expose a fundamental political truth:
The guarantee belongs to the Centre.
The publicity belongs to the Centre.
The expenditure belongs to the States.
The control remains with Modi.
And if the scheme fails, the blame will fall on the States.

The situation reminds one of an old saying: “Promising a bull, but handing over only the rope.” Can state governments realistically bear such a massive financial burden? Ultimately, it is the scheme workers who will suffer.

ERASURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Rule 3 of the Draft Rules deals with payments through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), banks, and post office accounts. However, there is no clarity regarding the protection of workers’ rights. If wages are delayed, who is responsible?

What action will be taken against officials if the unemployment allowance is not paid? The Draft Rules provide no clear answers to these questions.

The most dangerous change appears in Rule 4. In particular, the Normative Allocation mechanism contained in Rule 4(2) seeks to fundamentally alter the very philosophy of MGNREGA. The basic principle of MGNREGA is simple: “If work is demanded, work must be provided.” Under the old framework, if there was a demand for employment, the Government was legally obligated to provide the funds. The new framework entirely reverses this principle by tying the right to work to strictly predefined budgetary limits. This marks a devastating shift from a right to a quota; a shift from a legal guarantee to a budget ceiling; and a shift from a citizen’s right to bureaucratic discretion. Claiming to expand the scheme under these conditions is like increasing the capacity of a water pump after the well has already run dry. The promise of 125 days exists only on paper.

DANGERS HIDDEN IN THE DRAFT RULES: A CLAUSE-BY-CLAUSE BREAKDOWN

Rule 7 – Worker Identity, Records, and Gramin Rozgar Guarantee Cards

What it says: Only MGNREGA Job Cards that have been renewed and verified through e-KYC will be treated as valid.

The danger: Millions risk losing their right to work and wages due to Aadhaar-related and e-KYC technical glitches. Past experience has already shown large-scale, arbitrary cancellations of Job Cards during such biometric verification processes.

Rule 4 & 8 – Composition and Powers of the National Steering Committee

What it says: The Steering Committee will consist entirely of senior bureaucrats from the Central and State Governments. It is empowered to exercise absolute authority over everything—from the selection of works and Job Card administration to fund allocations. It enjoys enormous power without any meaningful accountability to Parliament or State Legislatures.

The danger: Workers, Panchayats, Dalits, Adivasis, women workers, trade unions, and rural mass organisations are completely denied representation in the decision-making process. The interests of the poor have little chance of being reflected in policy. While it is called a "Steering Committee," real control will remain heavily concentrated within a centralised bureaucratic apparatus operating under the influence of the PMO and the RSS-driven Hindutva agenda.

Rule 3 – Central Gramin Rozgar Guarantee Council

What it says: Members of the Council are to be nominated entirely by the Central Government.

The danger: Democratic representation is eroded. The Council can easily be packed with government-appointed yes-men rather than actual representatives of rural communities.

Rule 5 – Resignation and Removal of Non-Official Members

What it says: The Central Government is empowered to unilaterally remove non-official members.

The danger: Members who question or criticise government policies can be axed without due process. Furthermore, the creation of an inner "Executive Committee" effectively reduces the wider Council to a mere rubber stamp.

Rule 7 – Conduct of Meetings

What it says: There is no legal requirement to publicly disclose discussions, proceedings, or decisions.
The danger: This total absence of transparency ensures that crucial decisions affecting millions can be made behind closed doors, completely shielded from public scrutiny.

Rule 8 – Functions of the Central Council

What it says: The Council is confined largely to an advisory and monitoring role.

The danger: It lacks any real executive authority over critical matters like enforcing wage payments, releasing funds, resolving grievances, or protecting workers’ rights.

CENTRALISATION, DIGITAL CONTROL, AND THE WEAKENING OF DEMOCRACY

Taken together, these provisions reveal an unmistakable pattern: digital control is being prioritised over workers’ rights, bureaucratic authority is replacing democratic participation, and centralisation is replacing federal decentralisation.

MGNREGA was intentionally built around the Gram Sabha. The selection of projects, the determination of local priorities, and social audits were all designed to be driven by grassroots people’s participation. The new framework systematically weakens the Gram Sabha to strengthen bureaucratic control, institutionalising a corporate system of: “Decisions about us, without us, and without the representatives we have elected.”

This also explains why the name of Mahatma Gandhi was stripped from the scheme. This is not merely a cosmetic change of name; it is an aggressive political statement. The name Mahatma Gandhi symbolised Gram Swaraj, decentralisation, and localised governance. The new framework moves in precisely the opposite direction, advancing a highly centralised, administrative model.

DIGITAL EXCLUSION IN THE NAME OF MODERNISATION

The digital mandates contained in the Draft Rules reflect this same technocratic approach. Mechanisms like e-KYC, Face Authentication, NMMS (National Mobile Monitoring System), and Aadhaar-based verification are aggressively pushed under the guise of "modernisation."

But the lived experience of rural workers tells a far harsher story:

No network — no work.

No server — no attendance.

No fingerprint match — no wages.

The right to work is no longer in the hands of the worker; it is at the mercy of volatile software systems. The tragic incident in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh—where women workers standing by a busy roadside just to catch a mobile signal for online attendance were struck and killed by a truck—exposes the brutal, inhuman consequences of these policies. Technology should serve the people, not become a wall that excludes them from basic rights.

THE CLASS CHARACTER BEHIND THE CHANGES

When all these structural changes are viewed together, the real class character of the state emerges. These are not accidental or poorly managed reforms—they reflect a definite pro -corporate class outlook. There are lakhs of crores available for tax concessions to corporate houses. There is money to hand over land, mines, and public natural resources to big business. There is money to write off massive bad loans owed by wealthy corporate defaulters. But we are told there is no money to guarantee employment for the rural poor.

The objective here is calculated: to weaken the bargaining power of rural labor, maintain a massive pool of cheap labor for corporate exploitation, reduce the social obligations of the state, and slash welfare expenditure. MGNREGA provided a minimum level of security to rural workers, established a baseline wage floor, and held back absolute hunger and desperation. That is precisely why the ruling class is attempting to dismantle it step by step.

A CLARION CALL FOR UNITED RESISTANCE

VB-GRAMG should not be viewed merely as a replacement scheme. It is a comprehensive political-economic project aimed at destroying the rights-based foundation of public employment. It is not a 125-day employment guarantee it is an attempt to chop the roots of the MGNREGA tree while painting its dying leaves green.

Therefore, agricultural laborers, the rural poor, women, Dalits, Adivasis, farmers’ organizations, agricultural workers’ unions, trade unions, and all democratic forces must build the broadest possible united platform to resist this assault.

The VB-GRAMG Draft Rules must be withdrawn.

The new framework must be repealed.

MGNREGA must be retained and vigorously strengthened.

A statutory legal guarantee of 200 days of employment must be provided.

Full Central funding must be constitutionally ensured.

The democratic powers of Gram Sabhas and Panchayats must be restored.

All coercive digital mandates that lead to mass exclusion must be abolished.

Let us defend the right to work!

Let us build a nationwide people’s resistance!