Examine how the Viksit Bharat – G RAM G Act, 2025 addresses the structural limitations of MGNREGA.

The VB–G RAM G Act, 2025, in force across rural India from 1 July 2026, repeals rather than amends MGNREGA, 2005 [1]. This choice of a repeal-and-replace route signals that the government read MGNREGA's shortcomings as structural, not procedural.

Structural limitations of MGNREGA

• Capped entitlement: 100 days per household annually proved inadequate against sustained agrarian underemployment [4].
• Weak wage discipline: delayed payments diluted the enforceability of the "guarantee".
• Financing uncertainty: annual, demand-driven budgeting left States facing mid-year arrears.
• Wage-centric design: limited convergence between employment provided and durable livelihood creation.

How the new Act responds

• Enhanced guarantee: statutory wage employment raised from 100 to 125 days per household each financial year [1][4].
• Retained and reinforced safeguards: unemployment allowance if work is not provided within 15 days is carried over, with interest payable on delayed wages [4][3].
• Predictable financing: a ₹7.5 lakh crore five-year target [2], with ₹95,692.31 crore as the Central share for 2026-27 — a shift from year-to-year uncertainty toward medium-term commitment [1].
• Asset and panchayat focus: an average of over ₹2 crore annually across roughly 2.86 lakh panchayats benchmarks village-level development spending [2].
• Livelihood convergence: the "Ajeevika Mission (Gramin)" component embeds wage employment within a broader livelihoods framework aligned to Viksit Bharat @2047 [1].

Concerns that persist

• The Centre's emphasis on an "uninterrupted" and "seamless" transition [3] itself acknowledges administrative churn in job cards, muster rolls and MIS migration.
• A higher entitlement is meaningful only if allocations track actual demand; otherwise 125 days remains notional.
• State-specific packages, such as Andhra Pradesh's ₹7,707 crore [2], risk uneven rollout across States.

The Act therefore corrects MGNREGA's most visible design deficits — days, wage timeliness and funding predictability — while shifting from pure wage support toward asset and livelihood creation. Its success will hinge on demand-responsive allocation, robust grievance redressal and genuine panchayat capacity, so that an enhanced statutory promise translates into an enforceable right on the ground.