Government likely to rename MGNREGS to ‘Pujya Bapu Gramin Rozgar Yojana’

The government is likely to introduce a Bill in the ongoing Winter session of Parliament amending the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), changing the name of the flagship rural employment scheme to “Pujya Bapu Gramin Rozgar Yojana”.

According to senior government functionaries, the amended Bill was cleared by the Union Cabinet in its meeting held on Friday (December 12, 2025). There was no official announcement on the proposal at the Cabinet briefing addressed by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. The original Bill passed by Parliament on August 25, 2005 was called “National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”. The suffix “Mahatma Gandhi” was added in 2009.

The flagship rural employment scheme guarantees up to 100 days of wage employment in every financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. The sources also indicated that the government plans to increase this to 125 days.

As per a written answer by the Minister of State for Rural Development Kamlesh Paswan on Friday (December 12, 2025) in Rajya Sabha, the average number of days of employment per household during the last five years comes to 50.35 days. Mr. Paswan also noted that the scheme is a “fallback option when no better employment opportunity is available”.

In 2022, the government had appointed a panel headed by former Union Rural Development Secretary Amarjeet Sinha to review the scheme, especially the inter-State variations, particularly lower expenditure under the scheme in States with higher poverty rates, including Bihar, when compared with economically better-off States, including Tamil Nadu.

The amended Bill is also likely to take into account the panel’s recommendation, introducing exclusionary clauses based on economic indices of a State.

The government is also likely to tweak the funding pattern. At present, the Centre bears 100% of the scheme’s wage component.

Also read | MGNREGS would continue, but only as a living monument to failure Congress’ failure: PM Modi

The government could also introduce more checks to avoid situations such as prolonged standoff between the Centre and West Bengal government. The release of funds to West Bengal was stopped in March 2022 by the Centre owing to continued non-compliance with the directives of the Union government by the State. The Centre on December 6, 2025 issued orders for resumption of the scheme in the State following a Calcutta High Court order “subject to mandatory compliance with the special conditions”.