DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand has formally implemented the Viksit Bharat–Employment and Livelihood Guarantee Scheme (VB-G RAM-G), with Rural Development Secretary Dhiraaj Garbyal issuing the state notification for its rollout.
The scheme, which came into effect across the country on Wednesday, replaces the earlier MGNREGA framework and introduces a national minimum rural wage floor of Rs 300 per day.
With the new wage structure, rural workers in Uttarakhand are set to benefit from a 15 to 25 per cent increase in daily wages. Under the previous MGNREGA regime, workers in the hill state were paid Rs 252 per day. The revised rates will now push their daily earnings above Rs 300.
“The state has completed the necessary groundwork for implementing VB-G RAM-G in mission mode,” officials in the Rural Development Department said.
“The notification has been issued, and all district-level mechanisms are being aligned with the new guidelines,” they added.
The Centre has, for the first time, fixed a national base wage of Rs 300 per day under the rural employment guarantee framework. As a result, the average daily wage across the country is expected to rise from Rs 299 to over Rs 327.
States where wages were previously below Rs 300 — including Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam and West Bengal — are likely to gain the most.
In Uttarakhand, 7.58 lakh workers are currently active under the rural employment programme. Of these, nearly 92 per cent have completed e-KYC, a key requirement for transparent payment and monitoring systems under the new scheme.
Officials said mapping of all 7,817 gram panchayats in the state has also been completed. The data has been uploaded to the Centre’s Yuktidhara portal, which will be used for planning, monitoring and geotagging of works.
The Centre had notified the implementation of VB-G RAM-G on May 11, in line with the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision, directing all states and Union Territories to issue their notifications by June 30.
Uttarakhand began preparatory work soon after the central notification.
Under VB-G RAM-G, 318 categories of work have been permitted under four broad themes. These include 107 works related to water security, 86 linked to rural livelihoods, 88 concerning rural infrastructure and 37 focused on disaster mitigation.
Officials added that works earlier approved under MGNREGA will continue to be accommodated under the new scheme, ensuring continuity for workers and panchayats during the transition.