As opposition mounts pressure, Centre explains rationale behind G RAM G Bill

The Union government, in its latest statement, has framed the Viksit Bharat–G RAM G Bill, 2025 as a “comprehensive statutory overhaul of MGNREGA” intended to match a changed rural India and the long‑term vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 as a reply to the scathing criticism from the Opposition leaders.

In a new PIB statement, the Centre argues that while MGNREGA stabilised rural incomes and created basic assets for nearly two decades, “the overall architecture... had reached its limits” and no longer aligned with falling poverty levels, diversified livelihoods and widespread digitalisation.

Instead of 100 days as per MGNREGA, the Centre notes that the new bill promises “125 days of wage employment per rural household in each financial year” with a legal right to unemployment allowance if work is not provided within 15 days.

The press note says this will “strengthen income security” while also helping farmers, because states can “notify up to 60 days in a FY when work will not be executed” during peak sowing and harvesting, ensuring labour availability and avoiding “artificial wage inflation in agriculture”. They also claim that the scheme now links employment more tightly with “durable rural infrastructure” across four priority areas: water security, core rural infrastructure, livelihood infrastructure and special works for extreme weather events.

Another rationale that the Centre presented is to move from scattered, village‑by‑village asset creation to a national infrastructure strategy.

Gram panchayat plans will be drawn up as “Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans” and integrated into a “Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack”, aligned with platforms like PM Gati Shakti, it stated.

The Centre also defends the shift from an open‑ended, purely demand‑based model to “normative funding, saying unpredictable allocations under MGNREGA made budgeting difficult.

Under the new centrally sponsored structure, the estimated annual requirement is Rs 1.51 lakh crore, with a central share of about Rs 95,692 crore and state cost‑sharing of 60:40 for most states, 90:10 for North‑Eastern and Himalayan states and 100 per cent central funding for UTs without legislatures. The Centre insists this “does not impose an undue financial burden on states” and will improve “predictability, accountability and Centre–State partnership”.

The Bill also leans heavily on technology and expanded administration, raising the cap on administrative expenditure from 6 per cent to 9 per cent for staffing, training and technical capacity, the government note states. Governance will be driven by “AI‑based monitoring, real‑time dashboards and mandatory social audits”, biometric attendance, geospatial mapping and weekly public disclosure of key metrics, which the government claims will curb leakages and “reinforce accountability”.

Opposition parties, however, have sharply contested both the intent and design of the G RAM G Bill.

Congress leaders have alleged that the Bill “attacks the soul of rights‑based guarantee by replacing it with a scheme ‘stacked against’ the states and workers” and “defies the ideals of the Father of the Nation” by dropping Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the law.

Priyanka Gandhi argued that shifting to a 60:40 funding pattern “weakens the legal right to employment” and increases the burden on states even as many await pending dues, calling the change “against the poor and workers”.

Shashi Tharoor also described the proposal in Lok Sabha as “a deeply regrettable and retrograde step” and an “assault on the very spirit and philosophical foundation” of the job guarantee programme.

Trinamool Congress MPs Sougata Ray and Mahua Moitra accused the Centre of turning a demand‑driven right to work into an “allocation‑based framework” and of using the new name to do “communal politics”, while warning that the 60:40 cost‑sharing would put “great pressure on the states’ finances”.​