No guarantee of right to work?

Until 2007, Srilakshmi worked in jowar fields in Belagavi’s Athani taluk for ₹40 a day and a ration of two kg of grain. Men alongside her earned ₹65 and the same ration. During lean months when work dried up, she joined nearly 50 others from the taluk migrating over 100 km to Kolhapur in Maharashtra, where they worked for over 60 days, cutting leather into straps and soles and finishing Kolhapuri chappals, earning ₹120 a day with accommodation. 

For Srilakshmi and thousands who migrated for work, equal wages, guaranteed employment within 15 days, and compensation for denial was unthinkable. These promises formed the basis of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA). 

Right to work

Hailed with the social message of “Har hath ko kaam mile, kaam ka pura daam mile” (every hand should get work, and every worker should get the full value of their labour), MGNREGA was introduced in 2006 to legally guarantee the “right to work”, combat chronic poverty and serve as a social security net, with workers saying it gave them something they were long deprived of – bargaining power. 

“It was MGNREGA that first recognised women as workers in their own right. That was when many of us first saw our names on job cards and opened bank and post office accounts in our own names,” Srilakshmi said.

Proudly narrating the women’s first collective demand for work, Bharathi Santosh, a worker from Raichur, said 120 women had gone to the block office in Sindhanur seeking employment. “The officer had never seen so many women turn up asking for work,” she said. Two days later, many were allotted work. “Four hours of work and equal income. That felt powerful. We felt equal,” she said. 

Women have accounted for over 58% of MGNREGA workers for the last five years, as per official data.

End of MGNREGA

After completing 20 years in February this year, MGNREGA is set to be replaced. Starting July 1, the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), 2025 (VB-G RAM G Act) will be rolled out nationwide.

VB-G RAM G has triggered sharp resistance from sections of workers, who argue that it guarantees “unemployment” under the pretext of a guarantee scheme. Workers argue that the new Act kills the “soul” of the scheme – by shifting from a “demand-based” entitlement to a “supply-driven” model, where funds are no longer open-ended but capped.

Even before the Act is rolled out, the transition has left workers without work. The Act was earlier announced to come into effect in April 2026 and was then postponed to July.

“From March till June, Form 6 were not available across gram panchayats. We were only told that new forms will come under the new Act, nothing beyond that,” said Krishnappa from Raichur. “This is the peak season. The income cycle revolves around wages – from buying seeds or repaying small debts taken to surviving the lean period until the next round of work begins. If that cycle breaks, there is no way to manage even basic expenses,” he said, adding that new worksites were not being opened despite assurances that MGNREGA would continue until the new Act comes into effect.

125 vs 100

The scheme proposes 125 days of work, compared to the 100 days guaranteed under the MGNREGA. The government has invited objections to the draft rules ahead of rollout. However, workers say their only demand is that VB-G RAM G be immediately and unconditionally halted.

Workers and unions such as the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha said the law was passed through both Houses of Parliament in less than a week, and the same continues in the draft rules process. The rules, released on May 23, 2026, gave stakeholders until June 21 for feedback, even as rollout is set for July 1. Unions wonder if these inputs will be considered at all if the decision has already been made.

Power dynamics

Arguing that the changes could reshape wage dynamics across labour markets, Rajendran Narayanan from NREGA Sangharsh Morcha said the MGNREGA created a wage floor below which private employers found it harder to push workers.  “If employment under the scheme is restricted or suspended, large numbers of labourers are pushed into the private labour market at once, weakening bargaining power and benefiting large landowners and employers, while landless labourers and women workers lose out,” he said. 

He added that the issue goes beyond workdays, as MGNREGA provided an alternative source of income and the ability to refuse exploitative wages, and reducing it inevitably shifts power back towards employers.

Capped employment

Notably, while the new Act increases the workdays, it also caps the total amount of work that can be generated. Unlike MGNREGA, where work expanded with demand, the new framework ties jobs to a fixed annual “normative” allocation for each State. Once this central cap is exhausted, additional demand is not met unless States fund it, turning an open-ended entitlement into a budget-restricted system. 

Split the bill

The scheme is also structured on a 60:40 funding model, with States expected to contribute 40% of the cost, unlike MGNREGA where wage payments were fully funded by the Centre.

Workers argue that similar Centre-State cost-sharing patterns, as seen among ASHA and Anganwadi workers, often lead to delays in wage payments when either side of funding is disrupted. Even under MGNREGA, they argue, wage revisions over time did not keep pace with inflation.

The funding model has also drawn criticism from the Karnataka government, which has argued that States are already under fiscal stress and cannot shoulder the burden of contributing 40% of the funds.

The Union government on June 9 released the interim budget for VB-G RAM G. Karnataka has been allocated ₹5,709.9 crore under the Act. Announcing the release, Union Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that Karnataka, along with Jharkhand, Telangana and Mizoram, is yet to complete all procedural formalities. The total allocation for States under the interim budget stands at ₹92,550.17 crore.

Not perfect

Workers’ unions acknowledged that MGNREGA was not perfect, citing delayed fund releases, wage payment backlogs and excessive digitisation as recurring post-COVID concerns, and acknowledging that even the legal guarantee of 100 days was rarely met. While households were entitled to 100 days of work, data shows average employment per household as close to 45 days.

In 2025-26, the average wage rate per person per day was ₹342, up from ₹282.2 in 2021-22, an increase of only ₹59 – which workers say does not reflect rising living costs.

However, workers like Chetana from Dharwad argued that if a demand-driven programme backed by a legal guarantee, open-ended funding commitments and full central support struggled to provide 100 days of employment, how can a scheme built on capped allocations, shared state funding and periodic work stoppages realistically deliver 125?

Right under question

“We are told work will be given only if a requirement is identified, approved and funded. If there is no approved project or the budget is exhausted, there is no work. That means it is no longer a guarantee, and the uncertainty decides whether we migrate,” said Mahantesh, a worker from Kalaburagi. He added that work under the Act will be identified by the Union government and if priorities lie elsewhere, workers will have to migrate for work. “How does someone sitting in Delhi know what is the need in Raichur or Belagavi or anywhere? How is that a right to work?” he contended.

Workers argue that the new Act is not a replacement for MGNREGA in any real sense. “Replacement means something better, beyond changing name. Something that reflects current realities and is framed after consulting the people it affects,” said another worker Mahesh from Grameena Kooli Karmikara Sangha (Grakoos), emphasising that for labourers, power lay in the gram panchayats – the first point of access for any household seeking work.

Viksit Gram Panchayats

“Every December, a gram panchayat meeting would be held where we put forward our demands. Work was planned and implemented accordingly,” said Gayathri Anjappa from Hubballi. She added that the gram sabha decided village works, with “the village’s priorities” guiding planning.

Under VB-G RAM G, however, access to work depends on central priorities, notified areas and approved schemes through Viksit Gram Panchayat Plans (VGPP).

“When work is capped, employment ceases to be a guarantee and becomes a scarce resource to be rationed,” Gayathri said, adding that in such cases officials are left with two choices – either distribute a limited number of workdays across a large number of households, leaving everyone with only a few days of employment, or provide substantial work to a smaller group while excluding many others altogether. “In either case, somebody is denied work.” 

Pause window

Another provision drawing criticism is the 60-day “Seasonal Alignment Window,” under which State governments can suspend all VB-G RAM G works for up to 60 days a year during peak sowing and harvesting seasons. Workers are expected to return to the private labour market during this period, and since it is treated as an administrative pause, no unemployment allowance is payable.

Workers say this marks another shift from MGNREGA, where work could be demanded throughout the year. “Karnataka’s uneven geography makes such a blanket pause problematic, as drought-prone north Karnataka depends far more heavily on the scheme than the south, and a uniform shutdown could hit the poorest regions hardest, leaving migration as the only option,” argued Krishnappa, a worker from Koppal. 

The provision around pause-window rests on the assumption that demand for work falls during monsoon months – a claim contested by workers. In Karnataka, 34.5 lakh people demanded work between June and August alone in 2025-26. 

Workers like Krishnappa shared that large farmers dependent on wage labour have long pushed for suspending MGNREGA during peak seasons, since it allows workers to refuse low wages and poor conditions. They warn that a 60-day pause would push workers back into the private labour market precisely when agricultural labour demand is highest. 

Moreover, by restricting employment during so-called peak agricultural seasons, the scheme rests on the assumption that farm work is readily available. Women workers contest this, arguing that the agricultural jobs they are expected to return to have steadily declined over the years. 

‘Excessive digitisation’

Excessive digitisation has long been flagged as a problem under MGNREGA, with workers complaining that the National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) used for attendance is often affected by poor connectivity, server failures and facial recognition errors, leaving workers marked absent despite completing work and losing wages.

They say a system meant to improve transparency has instead become a barrier to wages. Even the Parliamentary Standing Committee report in April 2025 had even recommended pausing NMMS until glitches were fixed and strengthening offline systems, noting that technology should enable access to work, not block it. 

Workers argue the new Act pushes further in the same direction. “Despite repeated complaints, VB-G RAM G relies even more on digital and biometric systems for attendance, payments and monitoring,” said Raja K., another worker, adding there is still no clarity from the Centre or State on implementation. “If workers can lose wages because a photo fails to upload or a server crashes, what happens when the system becomes even more dependent on technology?” he asked.