Congress on Wednesday stepped up its attack on the Centre's Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Act, with senior leader Jairam Ramesh calling it "Rozgar Adhikar chori" and alleging that it dilutes the constitutional right to work while imposing a heavy financial burden on states.
Sharing an article by former Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Haseeb Drabu on X, Ramesh said the new law dismantles the rights-based framework of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
"Haseeb Drabu, one of India's finest economists and the former Finance Minister of J&K, has written a very incisive article exposing the realities of the VB G RAM G that has been bulldozed through to replace the transformational MGNREGA," Ramesh said.
"VB G RAM G is really Rozgar Adhikar chori. It replaces a Constitutional right to work that has empowered gram panchayats with a highly centralised scheme that places an intolerably heavy financial burden on state governments," he said.
Ramesh also alleged that the new law introduces technology "not to facilitate but to exclude" beneficiaries and claimed that, unlike MGNREGA, it does not provide employment throughout the year.
In his article published in an English daily, Drabu argued that MGNREGA, now replaced by the VB-G RAM G Act, was a rights-based, demand-driven programme that guaranteed every eligible rural household 100 days of unskilled work as a legal entitlement. He said the new law has converted that entitlement into "a formula-driven, centrally determined transfer."
The Congress has been opposing the legislation since it came into force on July 1, demanding that it be repealed and that a strengthened MGNREGA be restored. The party has also claimed that wages under the new law are "unjustifiably low" and has called for adopting the 2019 recommendations of the expert committee headed by Dr Anoop Satpathy, with adjustments for inflation, to ensure a fair minimum wage for rural workers.
The VB-G RAM G Act came into effect nationwide on July 1, replacing the nearly two-decade-old MGNREGA, which was introduced by the Congress-led UPA government.
(With inputs from PTI)