Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: President Droupadi Murmu has given her assent to the Viksit Bharat—Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, 2025.
With this, the two-decade-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) stands replaced by a new statutory framework aligned with the government’s Viksit Bharat 2047 vision.
The new Bill enhances the statutory wage employment guarantee to 125 days per financial year for rural households, marking a significant milestone in the transformation of rural employment policy. It added that the Act seeks to advance empowerment, inclusive growth, convergence of development initiatives and saturation-based delivery.
There is a significant shift in funding architecture. Unlike MGNREGA, where the wage component was fully funded by the Centre, the VB-G RAM G framework mandates shared financing between the Centre and states.
The proposed funding pattern is a 60:40 Centre-State split, replacing the earlier Centre-heavy models of 90:10 for northeastern and Himalayan states and 75:25 for others. The Government has argued that this change will promote cooperative federalism and give states greater ownership of outcomes.