Global & US Headlines
President Murmu Signs VB-G RAM G Act, Scrapping 20-Year-Old MGNREGA
On 21 Dec 2025, India repealed its demand-driven 100-day rural job guarantee and instituted the VB-G RAM G Act, offering 125 days of work but capping budgets, shifting 40 % of costs to states, and letting Delhi pause the scheme for 60 days each year.
Focusing Facts
- Bill cleared Parliament on 18 Dec 2025 and became law with presidential assent on 21 Dec 2025, officially repealing the 2005 MGNREGA statute.
- New funding formula: Centre 60 % / States 40 % nationwide (90:10 for NE & Himalayan states) compared with MGNREGA’s 100 % Centre-funded wages.
- The Act empowers the Centre to declare a 60-day annual moratorium on work during peak farming seasons, overriding local demand.
Context
Big welfare entitlements rarely die; they are renamed, downsized, or devolved. Britain’s 1834 Poor Law replaced parish relief with workhouses, the U.S. converted Aid to Families with Dependent Children into state-capped TANF block grants in 1996, and now India’s 2005 MGNREGA—often likened to Roosevelt’s WPA—has been turned into a supply-driven, cost-shared programme. Each reform shifted fiscal risk from the central exchequer to local governments and imposed ceilings that temper the original guarantee. VB-G RAM G follows the same arc: rhetorical expansion (125 vs 100 days) masks tighter purse strings and greater federal control, reflecting a decade-long trend of recentralisation even while invoking “co-operative federalism.” Whether this moment matters a century from now depends on two tests: if India’s rural labour market diversifies enough to render a jobs guarantee irrelevant, the law will be a footnote; if climate volatility and mechanisation keep casual farm work scarce, dismantling a rights-based safety net in 2025 could be remembered as a pivotal retreat reminiscent of the Poor Law Amendment’s harsh legacy.
Perspectives
Pro-government regional and wire media
e.g., UNI, Asianet News, Assam Tribune — Present the VB-G RAM G Act as a major upgrade that lifts the work guarantee to 125 days, empowers Panchayats and will speed village development. Stories echo Ministry press releases and ministers’ quotes while glossing over new funding burdens and the 60-day pause, signalling alignment with the BJP narrative.
Congress and centre-left national outlets
e.g., The Hindu, reports highlighting Congress protests — Depict the new law as dismantling MGNREGA, erasing Gandhi’s legacy and turning a legal right to work into a capped, centrally-controlled favour that will hurt the rural poor. Coverage amplifies Opposition leaders’ rhetoric and may overstate harm or ignore the added 25 workdays to rally voters against the BJP. ( Asian News International (ANI) , The Hindu )
Business and financial press
e.g., Business Standard — Frames the change as a ‘name-changer or game-changer’ that shifts from a demand-driven scheme to a capped, supply-driven model with altered Centre-state cost sharing. Fiscal-management lens foregrounds efficiency and budget caps, which can downplay labour rights or social-protection concerns for rural workers.