Government failed to address rural distress, say Opposition MPs

Opposition MPs attacked the Union government over decrease in funds to the rural sector and its inability to address rural distress during a debate on the working of the Union Ministry of Rural Development in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday (March 10, 2026). BJP members countered the attack, saying that the Narendra Modi government believed in building strong villages.

Initiating the debate, BJP MP K. Laxman said the Centre had uplifted the rural lives. He said the allocation to the rural sector increased over the years since 2014 and the increase compared to last budget was 4%. “The Modi government increased the allocation to the rural employment scheme by 40% compared to the UPA regime,” he said, adding that the new VB-G-RAMG scheme was a transparent scheme than the MGNREGS.

Parliament Budget session updates on March 10, 2026

Congress MP Rajani Patil said statistics looked good in papers and the ground reality in villages was different. “Unemployment is increasing. Farmers are in distress,” she said, adding that the “historic step” of the government of stopping the MGNREGS was not considering the ground realities. “This Ministry is linked with crores of rural lives. If the schemes of the Ministry are not strong, people will not get the benefit of it,” she said.

‘Attack on federalism’

Trinamool Congress MP Mohammed Nadimul Haque said the Union government was adopting a “stepmotherly” attitude to West Bengal and asked the Centre to explain the reasons for withholding funds meant for different rural schemes. He said the Centre withheld dues worth ₹52,000 crore to West Bengal towards the MGNREGS and added that about 59 lakh workers had been deprived of the scheme’s benefits since March 2022. He said the VB-G RAM G Act was “a hasty piece of legislation” and an “attack on federalism” and “on the right to livelihood as enshrined in our Constitution”.

Nominated MP Sudha Murty said the government was doing good work in skilling persons from villages. “However, it is imperative that in addition to skilling them technically, it is equally important to improve their confidence by providing them personality development and language courses,” Ms. Murty said.

CPI (M) MP John Brittas said there was a rural distress in the country and the Centre was not addressing it. “When I say so there is a huge migration that is happening from many other States. I was just checking the migrant labour map. From Uttar Pradesh alone, three crore people have migrated. From Bihar, 2.5 crore people have migrated,” he said.