Critically compare VB-G RAM G with MGNREGA in terms of entitlements, fiscal federalism and monitoring architecture.

MGNREGA, 2005 was a demand-driven law that gave rural households a right to 100 days of work. The VB-G RAM G Act replaced it and came into force on 1 July 2026 [2][3]. It offers more days of work and tighter digital monitoring. However, it moves more of the cost to states and more of the risk of technology failure to workers.

Entitlements

• Guarantee raised from 100 to 125 days. The 15-day unemployment allowance trigger is retained [2].
• Continuity gap: under MGNREGA, delay compensation was not paid in most places [6]. More days add little if wages arrive late.

Fiscal Federalism

• MGNREGA: the Centre paid the full cost of unskilled wages, so funding grew with demand.
• VB-G RAM G: costs are shared 60:40 between Centre and states, or 90:10 for North-eastern and Himalayan states. States also pay all costs above the Centre's normative allocation [2].
• FY 2026-27: the Centre provides ₹95,692 crore of a total above ₹1.51 lakh crore, or roughly 63% [1].
• Critique: fiscally weak states may limit the work they offer. A demand-driven right risks becoming a budget-capped scheme.

Monitoring Architecture

• MGNREGA: relied on social audit. From 1 January 2023, NMMS also required two geo-tagged photographs of workers each day [4].
• VB-G RAM G: adds face authentication, liveness detection, Play Integrity checks and AI de-duplication. A flagged photo automatically holds back the wage payment order. Wages are calculated from the e-MB, which records the work actually measured. About 40 of the 46 crore person-days so far were recorded through face authentication [1].
• Critique:
• The Standing Committee (2024) found workers who could not mark NMMS attendance went unpaid. It also found 14% of job card holders were not Aadhaar-enabled [5].
• Only nine states record all attendance through face authentication [1].
• The app checks who came, not how much work was done.

In short, VB-G RAM G improves the amount of work promised and the integrity of attendance. But it shifts risk to states and to vulnerable workers. Three steps would help: extra central funds for fiscally weak states facing high demand; published rates of wrong flags, with exceptions decided within fixed time limits; and stronger social audits. Together they would keep the scheme true to the "right to work" in Article 41 and to SDG 8.