Centre to remove Mahatma Gandhi from MGNREGS, replacing with 'VB–G RAM G'

New Delhi: Modi administration is set to rename the world’s largest rural job scheme by removing Mahatma Gandhi from it alongside other changes, The Wire reported.

The previous Congress-led UPA government’s game-changer rural employment scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme will be renamed as Viksit Bharat—Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill.

In the event of passing the Bill for it in the parliament, it will be known by the acronym VB–G RAM G Act.

Earlier The Wire reportedly speculated that the the scheme’s replaced name would be have ‘Pujya Bapu’ instead of Mahatma Gandhi as in the MGNREGS.

The government however is seemingly refashioning the scheme in the proposed Bill by doing away with ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ entirely.

The government’s proposal envisions to get rural development ‘aligned with the national vision of Viksit Bharat @2047, by providing a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment in every financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to undertake unskilled manual work’.

The MGNREGS offered 100 days of work in rural areas most parts of the country becoming solace to unskilled workers.

However, the proposed bill aims to implement the scheme as a ‘Centrally Sponsored Scheme, under which the financial liability shall be shared between the Central Government and the State Government in accordance with the fund-sharing pattern provided under sub-section (2) of section 22 of this Act, including enhanced share of the Central Government in respect of the North-Eastern States and Himalayan States, and the responsibility of the State Government to bear any expenditure incurred in excess of its allocated share.’

It is reported that the bill will lead to raise the state’s share to 40 per cent like in any centrally sponsored scheme just as the states are already saddled with immense burden.

The previous Centre-state split of 90:10 will now on be applied only to the North Eastern States, the Himalayan states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The proposed Bill offers to disburse daily wages on a weekly basis or ‘in any case not later than a fortnight after the date on which such work was done.’