G RAM G replacing MGNREGA will directly impact weaker sections; will oppose govt's move: Cong

New Delhi, Dec 19 (PTI) The Congress on Friday said the law brought in to replace MGNREGA has changed the basic character of the scheme and would lead to over-centralisation.

The principal opposition party asserted that it will draw up a roadmap to oppose the government move at its upcoming Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting next week.

Amid vociferous protests by the opposition, Parliament on Thursday night passed the VB-G RAM G Bill which seeks to replace the 20-year-old MGNREGA and guarantees 125 days of rural wage employment every year.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh alleged that this seems to be part of a "bigger conspiracy", as the Modi government first targeted the Right to Information Act (RTI) and now the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Ramesh said the government move will hurt the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and the marginalised sections the most.

He claimed that next in line might be the Forest Rights Act and the Land Acquisition Act, and eventually the government may even fiddle with the Food Security Act.

Ramesh said the Congress will oppose the scrapping of the rights-based MGNREGA and a strategy will be discussed in the CWC meeting to be held on December 27.

Just as the "black agricultural laws" directly impacted the farmers, the law introduced in place of MGNREGA will affect every section of society in the same way, he said.

It will also hurt the states because in MGNREGA, the central government used to bear 90 per cent of the expenditure and the state government 10 per cent but in this new law, the central government will now provide only 60 per cent of the budget, while the state government will have to contribute 40 per cent, Ramesh said.

As a result, the burden on the states will increase and their financial situation will deteriorate, he claimed.

"The objective of the MGNREGA was to empower panchayats. Earlier, funds used to go to panchayats and gram panchayats used to decide the projects, but now the central government will decide them. Therefore, this is not just a change of name. The basic character of MGNREGA has been altered," he alleged.

This has happened as part of a strategy, because the MGNREGA had given rights to farmers, labourers and tribals, which has been ended without any discussion with the opposition, Ramesh claimed.

Giving a brief background of the MGNREGA, the former rural development minister said the law was passed unanimously in 2005, after it was examined and thoroughly deliberated upon in the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which was headed by a prominent BJP leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister.

He alleged that the Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill (VB-G RAM G), which seeks to replace the MGNREGA, will lead to over-centralisation as the states and panchayats will have no control over the nature of work and employment to be provided through the scheme.

Ramesh said that by scrapping the MGNREGA, the BJP government had snatched the "right to work" of lakhs of marginalised people belonging to the SCs, STs, OBCs and women.

He accused the government of bulldozing the VB-G RAM G Bill.

Earlier in the day, opposition MPs protested the VB-G RAM G Bill in the Parliament House complex. Congress MPs showed pictures of Mahatma Gandhi before the day's proceedings outside Parliament's Makar Dwar and took out a protest march.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the government bringing the important Bill in the last two days of the Winter session and getting it passed in a hurry, which shows that there is something suspicious.

"This Bill is going to be very harmful for the poorest of the poor because the original MGNREGA scheme, the way it was structured where the centre paid 90 per cent of the funds for it, was a scheme which was the backbone of the rural economy and greatest support for very poor people," she said.

"For 20 years, it has been a good scheme which has been run and helped poor people," Priyanka Gandhi said, adding that the states eventually will not be able to afford it, which means the scheme will die.

The VB-G RAM G Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha with a voice vote late on Thursday night, hours after the Lok Sabha cleared it, amid strong protests by the opposition over the removal of Mahatma Gandhi's name from the existing rural employment guarantee scheme and accusing the government of putting the financial burden on states. PTI ASK SKC ASK KSS KSS