G-RAM-G Bill dismantles a guarantee

THE Modi government has pushed through Parliament the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025 (the G RAM G Bill) to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNGREGA). One thing that the G-RAM-G Bill clearly achieves is the dismantling of the MGNREGA job guarantee. The primary rationale for the G-RAM-G Bill is the cocktail of a name, using completely unrelated notions of Viksit Bharat and Ajeevika Mission to give it a religious colour. The G-RAM-G Bill disturbs India's fiscal federalism and constitutional scheme of things by trading job guarantee for a vote-catching name.

The Bill raises several questions. What does the G-RAM-G Bill have to do with Viksit Bharat and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin)? Is it diluting the employment guarantee or effectively disbanding it? What are the implications of the Central government reducing its obligations in funding guarantee expenditure and shifting it to the states? Does the centralisation of authority in the Central government and the shifting of responsibility to states sound the death knell for federal polity?

The G-RAM-G Bill mandates states to compulsorily notify "Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin): VB -G-RAM-G Scheme" and use the same nomenclature in all documents. The full name is unwieldy and may not be understood in non-Hindi speaking states. No one understands what Viksit Bharat is; its roadmap has been languishing at NITI Aayog for years. The G-RAM-G Bill only offers poverty-line wage income for only 3-4 months to unskilled workers. Such a low wage safety-valve job programme cannot be equated with the vision of Viksit Bharat.

The G-RAM-G Bill has nothing to do with Ajeevika Mission, a separate Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS), either. The Modi government has only displayed unimaginativeness by including Viksit Bharat and Ajeevika Mission in the name of the G-RAM-G Bill.

The standout feature of the MGNREGA Act was the demand-based guarantee of 100 days' work to every rural household throughout the year. The G-RAM-G Bill dilutes it massively, while nominally raising it to 125 days. The G-RAM-G guarantee will not be available during at least a 60-day period every year, which all states will have to notify as "peak agricultural seasons of sowing and harvesting" in advance.

During periods of natural calamities, unemployment stress deepens even during agricultural seasons. Even in such distressing times, the state governments would have to seek "specific relaxations", which the Centre may or may not grant or make it subject to conditions. The states/ panchayats will no longer be able to provide work by creating local labour-intensive works, as all G-RAM-G works will have to be aligned to the "national vision of Viksit Bharat @2047."

Further, as the G-RAM-G guarantee will have to operate within the normative budget allocated to states by the Central government, the guarantee may have to be suspended even during non-peak periods. The MGNREGA guarantee is substantially gone. The MGNREGA guarantee was a credible national guarantee only because it was backed by the Centre’s commitment to bear 100% wage expenditure.

The Central government would now foot only 60% of the wages bill, that too, if it is within the state-specific normative allocation. The Central share for the material component has been reduced from 75% to 60%. All expenditures over what the Centre chooses to bear are a state government's responsibility. 100% liability of unemployment allowance, in any case, remains that of the state governments.

The Central government will also have the right "to order stoppage of release of funds" and "institute appropriate remedial measures" in case it receives complaints. This can be easily weaponised to penalise the opposition states, as seen in the suspension of MGNREGA funds to West Bengal over the last three years. There is certainly a major misalignment of the Central government's offer of a political guarantee of 125 days' job and its financial obligation to fund it.

Over-centralisation in the G-RAM-G Bill reduces the states to the status of municipalities, which have many statutory obligations but no ability to raise funds. The Bill provides the Central government with enormous authority to impose statutory obligations on unwilling state governments. The state governments would have to formulate the job guarantee scheme consistent with the provisions of the G-RAM-G Bill. All works shall have to originate in Viksit Gram Panchayat plans, prepared in line with the provisions of the Bill, consolidated at block, district and state levels and finally aggregated into the Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack. The Central government shall specify wage rate (s) which the states will have to implement without question. The Centre will also have the authority to give any directions to the states. The G-RAM-G Scheme will be implemented as a CSS, allowing the Centre considerable leeway in scheme formulation, choice of works, funds flow, naming, etc.

The Central government has no constitutional authority to interfere in the exercise of the states' executive authority in the State List subjects or to impose any statutory obligations on them. Article 282 allows the Central government to make grants on state subjects and nothing more. No statutory obligations can be imposed under Article 282. The CSSs derive their legitimacy from Article 282. As the G-RAM-G scheme is a CSS, no statutory obligations can be imposed on the states. The Bill strikes at the root of the federal character, which constitutes a basic structure as well. The G-RAM-G Bill is ultra vires of the Constitution. It must be challenged in the Supreme Court.

The states would be the principal losers if they implemented the G-RAM-G guarantee as a subordinate instrumentality of the Central government. To keep their existence and relevance intact, the states must think of providing the extant MGNREGA guarantee, without any dilution. For this, they may consider, until the Supreme Court decides, implementing the MGNREGA guarantee, using provisions of Section 30 of the G-RAM-G Bill, which allows better state schemes to continue.

In the longer run, the federalist forces must join hands and respond by faithfully implementing the MGNREGA guarantee while the Centre dismantles it.