On the eve of MGNREGA’s second decade, India has chosen a path that betrays the very ethos the Act once enshrined. The Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-G RAM G) does far more than merely dropping Mahatma Gandhi’s name. It signals a deliberate retreat from a rights-based, demand-driven commitment to rural livelihood security toward a discretionary, capped, fiscally managed programme that treats employment as a policy choice, not a legally enforceable obligation.

The renaming of an Act that had become shorthand for the promise of dignity to the poor is not a cosmetic tweak. It is a declaration of political priority: Narratives of ideology and national branding over substantive protection for the rural poor.

Instituted in 2005 and renamed in 2009 to include Gandhi’s name, the MGNREGA was unique in guaranteeing 100 days of wage employment per financial year to rural households willing to do unskilled manual work. In the fiscal year 2024-25, the scheme’s total expenditure reached approximately Rs 1,25,219 crore, albeit with a negative net balance of nearly Rs 30,000 crore owing to delayed clearances and wage/material........

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