The history of public policy in India is punctuated by acronym soups. There are over two dozen abbreviations for programmes. Acronyms seem mandatory nutrition for welfare schemes—for instance, POSHAN for Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment, and PM-AASHA for Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan.
This week, parliament repealed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and enacted the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin law. What was once called ‘Manrega’ has been replaced by VB-G-RAM-G—you could say the burden of alleviating the misery of rural folks has been shifted from Mahatma Gandhi to Lord Ram.
Consider the essence of the change. The new law assures 125 days of work instead of 100 days, splits the burden of funding from 100 percent on the Centre to 40 percent on most states, mandates a 60-day pause during sowing/harvesting, focuses on four specific verticals—water, security, infra and climate resilience—and replaces the bottom-up structure with a top-down one integrated with PM Gati Shakti.
So why was the world’s largest job guarantee scheme—covering 741 districts, 2.69 lakh panchayats, 12.1 crore workers with an average expense of Rs 90,000—repealed and replaced? Two days before the VB-G-RAM-G Bill was introduced in parliament, the government applauded “the role of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS in providing livelihood security for the rural poor through creation of durable assets, improved water security, soil conservation and higher land productivity”.
The debate in parliament symbolised the poverty of reflection, ideas and arguments. The opposition tripped on the trap of soundbites and faith-baits. The BJP-led NDA regime titled the new law VB-G-RAM-G to consolidate its base and rile the opposition. The tactic worked as rhetoric precipitated around removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name and use of the lord’s name. Visibly and vividly, the narrative on form overwhelmed the imperative to debate substance.
Union ministers harp that the scheme was haunted by corruption. Just this week, Comptroller and Auditor General Sanjay Murthy observed there were serious gaps in the direct benefit transfer system. That said, the last complete audit of MGNREGA by the CAG was in 2013, followed by audits for Punjab in 2021 and a review of social audit units in 2016. It isn’t as if the opposition demanded audits or raised the question, nor was hard data presented in parliament. Taxpayers, who fund the Rs 10-lakh-crore scheme, are unaware of the magnitude of corruption beyond the sloganeering.
Typical of India’s welfare schemes, MGNREGA too was haunted by flaws of design and implementation. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development has persistently questioned why workers were being paid (Rs 200 and less) lower than the minimum wage. Tragically, almost annually, the committee flagged piling unspent allocations and unpaid dues to workers in what is a demand-driven fall-back option. In August 2025, the committee asked why Rs 12,219.18 crore was lying as unpaid wages—that is roughly 14 percent of the current year’s allocation for MGNREGA.
Will the new avatar of the rural employment scheme deliver where the old one flailed? Soon after the Poor Law Amendment of 1834 in Victorian England, Charles Dickens observed in Oliver Twist, “There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.” In public policy design, the past is often the prologue. The VB-G-RAM-G law promises 125 days of employment per rural household, as against 100 days under MGNREGA. The track record for the past five years ranges between 52 and 48 days. In 2024-25, just 40 lakh households of the 5.78-crore who worked completed 100 days of employment.
The new law is not just a new avatar, but a fundamental shift in the approach to welfare. The pause introduced during sowing/harvesting sounds rational, but can erode the pricing capacity of labour for the law to create a floor for wages. It is arguable that the introduction of technology could curb corruption. It is also possible that the focus on imperatives of water, climate and infra as themes could deliver the 125-day target. The question is whether the system has the capacity to align the demand for jobs with thematic targets and politicians have the empathy to step in.
The political class is stranded in the theatre of short-termism. India is running the largest rural employment programme, the largest free food programme covering 81 crore beneficiaries at Rs 2.12 lakh crore, the largest health insurance programme covering 50 crore people, the largest income support programme for 10 crore farmers, the largest mid-day meal programme for students, and a rural housing programme for 2 crore homes by 2029. These roughly cost the exchequer nearly Rs 6 lakh crore. Add the spends by states—just cash benefit transfers to women by 15-plus states is estimated to cost Rs 3 lakh crore.
Are the schemes delivering outcomes? And what explains the persistence of distress? India’s governments suffer from a strange psychosis. Political leaders focus on the consequences and leave the causes unattended. Addressing that which hinders growth will curb distress, and enable job creation and growth. Tragically, electoral expediency favours freebie flyovers—essentially, socialisation of cost and personalisation of power. It is well established that no ruler, worthy of his hire, can taketh away that which he hath once freely given.
To paraphrase Fyodor Dostoevsky, the political constituency of charity corrupts both who gives and who takes. The quest for equity must be scaffolded with commitment to efficiency. The billowing umbrella of populism threatens to ground growth, inhibit initiative and arrest aspiration.
Read all columns by Shankkar Aiyar
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India