Context

• The Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 marks a significant reform in India’s rural employment and livelihood framework.
• By expanding the statutory employment guarantee from 100 to 125 days and restructuring implementation around planning, convergence, and accountability, the Act seeks to strengthen rural livelihoods while enhancing long-term productivity.
• Criticism that the reform weakens employment rights, undermines decentralisation, or signals fiscal withdrawal rests on a flawed assumption that welfare and development are competing objectives.
• The Act is grounded in the principle that welfare and development are mutually reinforcing, and embeds this understanding within its statutory and institutional design.

Key Features of the VB- G RAM G Act

• Strengthening the Statutory Right to Employment
  • A key feature of the Act is the expansion of the guaranteed employment entitlement from 100 to 125 days, reinforcing the legal right to work.
  • The Act also strengthens enforceability by removing procedural dis-entitlement clauses that previously rendered unemployment allowances ineffective.
  • Time-bound grievance redress mechanisms have been reinforced, addressing the gap between statutory promise and lived reality.
  • The employment guarantee remains statutory, justiciable, and substantively stronger than before.
• Demand-Based Employment and Participatory Planning
  • The Act retains the demand-driven nature of employment, with workers continuing to initiate requests for work.
  • The reform lies in anticipatory, participatory village-level planning, ensuring that employment is available when demanded rather than being denied due to administrative unpreparedness.
  • Planning operationalises demand instead of replacing it, shifting the framework from reactive distress response to proactive livelihood assurance.
• Decentralisation and Institutional Architecture
  • Decentralisation remains central to the Act’s architecture. Gram panchayats continue as the primary planning and implementing authorities, while gram sabhas retain approval powers over local plans.
  • The introduction of Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans institutionalises decentralised planning rather than diluting it.
  • Aggregation of plans at higher administrative levels enables coordination, convergence, and visibility, while decision-making authority remains local. Centralisation is limited to coherence, not control.
• Consultation and Cooperative Federalism
  • The Act reflects the principles of cooperative federalism, having been shaped through extensive consultations with State governments, technical workshops, and multi-stakeholder discussions.
  • Key design elements, such as structured village planning, convergence mechanisms, and digital governance, are informed by State-level feedback and implementation experience.
  • States are positioned as development partners, not merely implementing agencies.

Fiscal Commitment and Addressing Structural Weakness

• Fiscal Commitment and Equity in Allocation
  • Claims of fiscal withdrawal are inconsistent with budgetary trends. Central allocations have increased to nearly ₹95,000 crore, demonstrating sustained fiscal commitment.
  • The 60:40 funding model, with a 90:10 ratio for northeastern and Himalayan States and Jammu and Kashmir, follows established norms.
  • Rule-based, normative allocation ensures equity, while flexibility provisions allow States to seek relaxations during natural disasters or extraordinary circumstances, balancing accountability with responsiveness.
• Addressing Structural Weaknesses of Earlier Frameworks
  • Implementation experience under earlier frameworks revealed episodic employment, weak enforceability of unemployment allowances, fragmented asset creation, and vulnerability to corruption and duplication.
  • These weaknesses became evident during droughts, migration surges, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • The Act responds by integrating livelihood security with durable asset creation, agricultural stability, and productivity enhancement, treating income support and development outcomes as a continuum.

Comparative Perspective: Lessons from the UPA Era

• Wage freezes ignored inflation, budgetary allocations declined despite rising demand, and worker participation fell.
• Delayed fund releases and administrative apathy weakened the employment guarantee.
• The Comptroller and Auditor General’s 2013 report documented widespread corruption, including fake job cards, financial irregularities, delayed wages, and poor record-keeping, particularly in States with high rural poverty.
• These failures underscored the necessity of structural correction rather than policy stagnation.

Conclusion

• The Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 represents renewal, not retreat, in India’s rural welfare framework.
• By expanding entitlements, strengthening enforceability, institutionalising decentralised planning, and enhancing fiscal and administrative coherence, the Act integrates welfare and development into a unified statutory model.
• Income support and productivity enhancement are treated as interdependent goals, laying the foundation for a resilient, self-reliant rural economy grounded in enforceable rights, cooperative federalism, and sustainable development.