Chandigarh, 16 December, 2025 (Yes Punjab News)
Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal, MLA Phagwara, has expressed deep concern over the proposed VB–G RAM G Bill, stating that it poses a serious threat to the spirit and substance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). He emphasised that MGNREGA is not merely a welfare scheme, but a constitutional commitment to dignity, decentralisation, and cooperative federalism — principles now being weakened fiscally, institutionally, and morally.
According to Dhaliwal, the Bill strikes at the core of the 100-day work guarantee by introducing state-wise normative allocations, which effectively impose a ceiling on a legal entitlement. “When funds run out, work stops. A right that depends on budget availability is no longer a right — it becomes a concession,” said Dhaliwal.
He warned that the Centre’s move to shift from full funding to a 60:40 cost-sharing model will overburden financially stretched States, forcing them to either cut employment or bear fiscal blame. “The Centre takes the credit, but passes both responsibility and blame to the States. This undermines the very foundation of cooperative federalism,” Dhaliwal added.
Highlighting the social consequences, Dhaliwal stated that for millions of rural families, MGNREGA has been the only predictable and legally guaranteed source of income. By capping work, suspending employment for sixty days during agricultural seasons, and introducing restrictive conditions, the new framework will push rural workers back into uncertainty, debt, and distress migration.
Dhaliwal further criticised the move to sideline Gram Sabhas and Panchayats, saying it reduces local self-governance to centralised administration controlled by dashboards, GIS layers, and AI audits. “This erodes the democratic voice of the people and turns constitutional institutions into mere implementing agencies,” he said.
Describing the renaming of the Act as an “ideological act of erasure,” Dhaliwal asserted, “Replacing Gandhi’s name with ‘RAM’ is not reform; it is rewriting history to align with a political narrative that undermines the rights-based framework of MGNREGA.”
Dhaliwal concluded,
*“MGNREGA recognised rural citizens as rights-holders. G RAM G treats them as costs to be managed. This Bill does not modernise rural employment — it shrinks guarantees, weakens States, centralises power, and betrays rural India’s constitutional rights and dignity.”
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