Renaming MGNREGA a needless act: Priyanka

Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday questioned reports suggesting that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) could be renamed as the ‘Pujya Bapu Rural Employment Scheme’, calling the move unnecessary and a drain on public resources.

Speaking to reporters, Gandhi said she could not see the logic behind changing the name of a flagship rural employment programme, particularly one associated with Mahatma Gandhi. She argued that such exercises impose avoidable financial costs on the government, with official systems required to be altered across departments.

The Congress leader said a change in name would mean rewriting records, replacing stationery and updating offices, all of which involve significant expenditure. She asked what public purpose would be served by undertaking such a costly process, especially when the scheme itself remains the same.

Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said that the PM that once called MGNREGA a “monument of failure” was now renaming it to claim credit for the revolutionary scheme. It’s yet another way of erasing Mahatma Gandhi from our national psyche, especially from the villages, where he said India’s soul resides.

“This move is also nothing but a cosmetic change to paper over the deliberate neglect being meted out to this scheme. MGNREGA workers have been demanding higher wages, but the Centre has been reducing allocated funds for the scheme year after year. The arrears keep piling up, and it seems to be a carefully planned strategy to engineer a slow death for the scheme,” he said on X.

He further said that in reality, this government had no intent of delivering welfare and was merely putting up a pretence when it had run out of ideas. “But, Mr Modi, rename it all you want, the people know it was Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi who brought this transformative scheme to every village of India,” he added.

MGNREGA, implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development, guarantees at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work. Every Indian citizen aged 18 and above living in rural areas is eligible to apply under the scheme.

It mandates that employment must be provided within 15 days of application. Wages are credited directly to the beneficiary’s bank or post office account, with payments mandated within a week, or up to 15 days in exceptional cases. The scheme ensures equal wages for men and women and is operational across the country, barring districts with a fully urban population.