Context

• The central government’s move to replace the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) represents a fundamental attack on India’s constitutional vision of social and economic justice.
• Passed using the government’s majority in the Lok Sabha, the proposed Bill alters the very nature of MGNREGA by dismantling its rights-based and democratic framework.
• This is not a routine policy reform but a serious erosion of the Directive Principles of State Policy and a direct assault on the rural working poor, warranting scrutiny by the Standing Committee of Parliament.

Constitutional Foundations of the Right to Work

• Article 41 of the Constitution directs the State to make effective provision for securing the right to work within its economic capacity.
• During the Constituent Assembly debates, this provision emerged as a compromise between socialist members, who sought to make the right to work a fundamental right, and capitalist interests, who opposed such an obligation.
• As a result, the right to work was placed among the Directive Principles, non-justiciable but central to economic democracy.
• Dr. B.R. Ambedkar described the Directive Principles as instruments of instruction essential for economic democracy, while K.T. Shah dismissed them as pious wishes.
• Decades of unemployment and exclusion under capitalist development have shown how fragile this constitutional promise remained until political circumstances forced a shift.

MGNREGA Act

• The Act guaranteed 100 days of work per rural household, was universal, and open to all adults willing to perform manual labour.
• Crucially, it was demand-driven, responding to actual need rather than fixed bureaucratic targets.
• This structure gave MGNREGA deep democratic content. Households retained freedom to seek better employment while relying on MGNREGA as a fallback.
• Equal wages for men and women, full central funding of wages, and meaningful roles for States and panchayats strengthened its inclusive and federal character.
• It was among the first such laws in the capitalist world.

Concerns Surrounding the Proposed Viksit Bharat- G RAM G Bill 2025

• Dismantling the Core Features of MGNREGA
  • The proposed Bill under the Modi government scraps these foundational principles.
  • The demand-driven mechanism is replaced by normative financial allocations fixed by the Centre, absolving it of legal responsibility once funds are exhausted.
  • At the same time, States are burdened with 40% of costs, despite ongoing fiscal stress and denial of their fair share of tax revenues.
  • The Bill introduces extreme centralisation, transferring control over project design, implementation, and audits to the Union government.
• Undermining the Federal Structure
  • This undermines the federal structure of the Constitution and marginalises States and panchayats, which earlier had authority to design projects based on local needs.
  • A clear class bias is evident in the prohibition of work during peak agricultural seasons. With increased mechanisation, agricultural employment has shrunk sharply.
  • Evidence shows that workers opt for MGNREGA during peak seasons only when agricultural wages fall below MGNREGA rates or work is unavailable.
  • The ban weakens workers’ bargaining power, forcing them into exploitative conditions imposed by large landowners, disproportionately harming women.
• Digital Exclusion and Symbolic Politics
  • The Bill legalises Aadhaar linkage and mandatory digital attendance for eligibility and wage payments, despite widespread evidence of exclusion due to poor connectivity and technical failures.
  • These measures transform a rights-based guarantee into a bureaucratic hurdle.
  • Renaming the scheme as the Viksit Bharat–G RAM G Bill 2025 reflects symbolic politics rather than substantive reform and risks provoking widespread resistance from those whose livelihoods are threatened.

Social Realities and Agrarian Distress

• The harsh working conditions under MGNREGA highlight persistent rural distress.
• Women often lift up to 3,000 kilograms of mud per day to meet productivity norms.
• Their participation, over 50% in most States, signals not choice but the absence of better alternatives.
• The social composition of workers underscores the law’s constitutional importance. Adivasis (18%) and Scheduled Castes (19%) are vastly overrepresented relative to their population share, together forming over two-thirds of the workforce.
• Rolling back their rights constitutes an attack on constitutionally protected communities, worsened by their removal from advisory and grievance redress mechanisms in the draft law.

Starvation of Funds and Manufactured Failure

• Since 2014, MGNREGA has been systematically underfunded, even as corporate tax concessions and write-offs have expanded.
• Worker participation has risen to over 7.7 crore, yet expenditure has stagnated below 0.2% of GDP.
• In 2024–25, nearly one crore workers were denied work, wage arrears ran into thousands of crores, and households received less than 50 days of work on average.
• Promises of 125 days of work in the new Bill appear cynical and hollow.

Conclusion

• MGNREGA remains an indispensable lifeline for India’s rural poor amid agrarian distress and unemployment.
• The proposed Bill dismantles its rights-based, democratic, and federal foundations, bulldozing the Directive Principles of the Constitution and undermining the vision of economic democracy.
• Strengthening, not weakening, the right to work is the true constitutional mandate, and the proposed replacement fails that test decisively.