Punjab Cong protests against VB-G RAM G Bill, asks AAP govt to come up with alternative scheme

Chandigarh, Dec 21 (PTI) The Opposition Congress in Punjab on Sunday held a protest against the Centre's VB-G RAM G Bill replacing the UPA-era MGNREGA, and urged the AAP-led state government to create an alternative scheme if it genuinely wants to support marginalised communities. President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday gave her assent to the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Bill, which replaces the MGNREGA and has a provision for 125 days of wage employment for rural workers. With the presidential assent, it now becomes the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, and a notification in this regard was published in the Gazette of India. The Rural Development Ministry, in a statement, called it a decisive reform in India's rural employment and development framework.

The Congress has claimed that the new bill fundamentally alters the character of the MGNREGA scheme.

Led by Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, the party workers staged a protest in Kharar, Punjab, against the BJP government at the Centre.

Addressing the dharna, Warring hit out at the Centre over the VB-G RAM G Bill, asserting that the new scheme will severely affect the livelihoods of poor labourers.

"Their decision was not only authoritarian and dictatorial but also aimed at targeting Dalits, the backward classes, and other downtrodden sections of society," he alleged.

Additionally, the PCC president called on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab to develop an alternative scheme if it truly intends to support marginalised communities.

"Instead of shedding crocodile tears, the state government should come out with its own scheme", Warring said, adding that if the AAP government's intentions were sincere, it would make its own arrangements and "not resort to a token show for its oxygen of publicity".

Warring alleged that while the "BJP's anti-Dalit, and anti-backwards stand is clear and well known", the AAP government had already failed in implementing MGNREGA, where it had to contribute only ten per cent of the grants against 90 per cent by the Centre earlier.

Warring noted that the Centre has now increased the state's share from ten per cent to forty per cent, predicting a complete collapse of the scheme in Punjab.

"Given that the AAP government could not provide its previous ten per cent share due to its financial mismanagement, how can we expect it to provide forty per cent in the scheme now?" he questioned.

"Despite the AAP government's utter all-around failures, the Congress will stand by the government in its opposition to the scrapping of the MGNREGA," The PCC president said.

"We expect the government not to merely shed crocodile tears over the MGNREGA, but also come out with the alternatives," he demanded.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had previously stated that under the old MGNREGA scheme, the Centre contributed ninety per cent while states contributed ten per cent.

"Now they say they have increased it to 125 days of employment. The Centre will contribute sixty per cent, and states will pay forty per cent. However, they do not provide funds to the states. Where will the states get the money from?" Mann had asked.

Meanwhile, the AAP government has summoned a one-day special session of the state assembly on December 30 to discuss "how the rights of the poor will be snatched", besides other amendments under the VB-G RAM G Bill that has replaced the MGNREGA.

Mann on Friday had opposed the Centre's move to bring the new bill, alleging that the union government is trying to jeopardise the livelihoods of the poor by altering the MGNREGA scheme.

The Congress has accused the Modi government of "desecrating the groundbreaking law" MGNREGA in the Parliament and said that two decades of progress have been overturned "without consultation" and by sidestepping all parliamentary conventions and procedure.

Defending the bill, Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had asserted that it was needed to fix the scheme's shortcomings.

According to the government, the new scheme aims to establish a rural development framework aligned with the national vision of 'Viksit Bharat 2047'. PTI SUN MPL MPL