‘Cong to fight against replacing of MGNREGA with G RAM G’

Ranchi: Congress Working Committee member Kamleshwar Patel on Monday said the party will oppose the replacement of the MGNREGA with the new ‘G Ram G’ scheme both on the streets and in Parliament.

This comes a day after President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, which replaces the MGNREGA, and has a provision for 125 days of wage employment for rural workers.

Patel claimed that the new law would impose an additional burden on the state’s exchequer and it would shake the economic foundation of many states.

“The Congress had brought the MGNREGA aimed at enhancing livelihood security of households in rural areas, which provided five crores jobs annually,” Patel told reporters here.

He alleged that the Centre has deliberately and systematically weakened MGNREGA over the past 11 years.

“In the last 5 years, MNREGA employment shrunk to just 50-55 days,” he claimed.

In MGNREGA, the Central government used to provide 90 per cent of the total expenditure, he said.

“In the new law, the Centre-state ratio has been changed to 60:40. The Modi government is going to impose a burden of more than Rs 50,000 crore on the states, which will shake the economic foundation of the states,” he claimed.

Slamming the Centre for dropping Gandhiji’s name from the new scheme, he dubbed the BJP-led regime as “anti-people.”

“We will be fighting against the renaming of the MGNREGA from the streets to Parliament,” Patel added.

Meanwhile, Congress MP Ranjeet Ranjan on Monday alleged that the Centre has effectively dismantled the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by pushing through a new legislative framework.

She accused the Modi government at the Centre of snatching away the right to work from the rural poor.

Addressing a press conference here, Ranjan said the changes amounted to the “murder of MGNREGA” and a deliberate attempt to weaken what she described as the world’s largest employment guarantee programme.

“Under the guise of reforms, the government has converted a rights-based guarantee into a conditional, centrally controlled scheme. What was once a legal right linked to Article 21 has now been reduced to administrative assistance dependent entirely on the Centre’s discretion,” she said.