Opposition, activists oppose new Bill replacing MGNREGA

The Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025, which seeks to repeal the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), faced opposition both within and outside the Parliament, even as the Lok Sabha began debate on the Bill.

The government, ignoring the demands from the Opposition, has conveyed its intent to pass the Bill in the ongoing session of Parliament that concludes on Friday (December 19, 2025).

The Opposition in Parliament and activists outside criticised the new legislation for upending the demand-driven architecture of the MGNREGA, removing its universality, centralisation of decision making and increasing the financial burden on the State governments.

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TDP’s demand

Both the JD(U) and the LJP (RV) stood in unqualified support of the new legislation, while the TDP flagged the increased burden on the State government. TDP floor leader Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu said Andhra Pradesh was a revenue-deficient State. “When we have to cough up 40% from the State to fund this scheme, we request that the same amount of support that has been extended for the last one and a half years be continued so that the scheme can be implemented well,” he said.

DMK’s K. Kanimozhi pointed out that while the State government’s share in Central taxes had been shrinking, the financial burden on the States was increasing. The new legislation split the expenditure on the rural employment scheme between the Centre and the State at a ratio of 60:40, as opposed to 90:10 under the MGNREGA. Only a few States still retain the 90:10 ratio. She also objected to the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. “This is not a ‘Viksit Bharat’ bill but a ‘vexed’ bill,” she said, questioning why the Centre had not named any legislation in any languages other than Hindi and Sanskrit. She spoke mostly in Tamil.

TMC’s Mahua Moitra said the word “guarantee” appeared 92 times in the Bill, but if the fine print was read, it did not guarantee anything, since the Centre gets to fix the budget and also notify the areas where the scheme would be implemented. She and other speakers from the TMC said removing Mahatma Gandhi’s name from the scheme was an insult to the father of the nation and also to Rabindranath Tagore who first coined the title “Mahatma”.

Congress’s Kodikunnil Suresh said the draft legislation was anti-women, pointing out that in States like Kerala, women constitute 90% of the MGNREGA workforce. “Many of these women are sole breadwinners for their families,” he said.

The debate went on till 10 p.m. on Wednesday (December 17). Union Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will reply to the debate on Thursday (December 18).

At the Press Club of India, just a few metres away from Parliament, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha held a press conference. CPI leader Annie Raja recalled the extensive consultations behind the 2005 Act. “MGNREGA was bottom-up; this Bill imposes a top-down approach. The Centre will decide where and when work happens,” she said, adding that shifts could extend to 12 hours. Economist Jayati Ghosh said the Bill turned entitlements into “gifts from the State”, citing trends such as ration bags and vaccine certificates carrying the Prime Minister’s photo. “This undermines citizenship and hurts an economy already facing weak demand,” she said.

Economist Jean Drèze, flagging the centralisation of decision-making powers, said, “The Centre would have full power when and where to implement the scheme, while the obligation is on the States. It is like saying I give a work guarantee but don’t guarantee that the guarantee would be in place.”

Activist and politician Yogendra Yadav announced nationwide protests from December 19.