Jean Dreze on VB-G RAM G Bill: ‘It is like providing a work guarantee without any guarantee that the guarantee is in place’
Jean Drèze suggests the proposed 60-day pause in the scheme during the peak agricultural seasons of sowing and harvesting is due to ‘pressure from some farmer lobbies’.
4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Dec 17, 2025 10:55 PM IST
Development economist and activist Jean Drèze said MGNREGA and RTI are social legislations. They are there to make the state accountable to the people. For these to work, they must be loaded in favour of the people. (File photo)
As the Centre has overhauled the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in a legislative framework titled Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, or VB-G RAM G Bill, development economist and activist Jean Drèze has criticised the measure as being aimed at destroying the scheme’s two-decade-old legacy. He talked to The Indian Express about the new Bill. Excerpts from the interview:
Q: What is the most contentious provision of the VB-G RAM G Bill, according to you?
Jean Drèze: I think it is the Centre’s discretionary power to decide where and when the scheme is to be implemented. This “switch-off clause”, as I call it, would defeat the purpose of the employment guarantee. It is like providing a work guarantee without any guarantee that the guarantee is in place.
Q: You suggested that this could be used as a political tool.
Jean Drèze: It might be. Acts like MGNREGA and RTI are social legislations. They are there to make the state accountable to the people. For these to work, they must be loaded in favour of the people.
Q: How does the introduction in the new Bill of the proposal of joint funding between the Centre and the state impact the states?
Jean Drèze: After the implementation of the GST, states are not in the best shape fiscally. That’s why we’re opposing this. This implies that there is no guarantee of adequate funding for many states. The Centre has full powers and no serious obligations. All the obligations ensuring compensation for workers for delayed payments have been shifted to state governments. Above what the Centre decides under the “normative allocation” formula, the states will have to pay the entire amount. It is essentially turning the MGNREGA into a run-of-the-mill centrally sponsored scheme, which places discretion in the hands of the Government.
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Q: What would you say about the increase in employment from 100 days to 125 days?
Jean Drèze: Raising the ceiling won’t do anything. Only 2 per cent of rural households are getting 100 days of work in any case. The number of households completing 100 days stood at 40.70 lakh in the last financial year out of over 12 crore active workers. This is the only constructive clause in the whole law. But it is only there to give the impression that they’re expanding the law, whereas they’re actually repealing it.
Q: A 60-day pause in the scheme during the peak agricultural seasons of sowing and harvesting is a move said to be aimed at ensuring farm labour availability.
Jean Drèze: This simply means a shrinking of the rights of the workers. I think they were possibly under a lot of pressure from some farmer lobbies. But the farmers’ movement as a whole is in favour of MGNREGA. I don’t think there was a need for this provision at all. There is another provision that could be problematic and act as a spanner in the wheel. This is the requirement of renewal of job cards every three years. This may seem reasonable, but to get a job card, people will have to give all sorts of information, such as their Aadhaar card and insurance card.
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Q: What has happened to MGNREGA wages over the years, and has it been behind the reduction in its usage?
Jean Drèze: The wages are set by the Central Government. They’ve frozen the real wages since 2009. MGNREGA wages initially used to be higher than the market wages. Now they’ve been frozen for so long that they’re less than the market wages. That’s a factor of discouragement. So now groups like the elderly and women are increasing under the Act because they don’t have access to the market.
Nirbhay Thakur is a Senior Correspondent with The Indian Express who primarily covers district courts in Delhi and has reported on the trials of many high-profile cases since 2023.
Professional Background
Education: Nirbhay is an economics graduate from Delhi University.
Beats: His reporting spans the trial courts, and he occasionally interviews ambassadors and has a keen interest in doing data stories.
Specializations: He has a specific interest in data stories related to courts.
Core Strength: Nirbhay is known for tracking long-running legal sagas and providing meticulous updates on high-profile criminal trials.
Recent notable articles
In 2025, he has written long form articles and two investigations. Along with breaking many court stories, he has also done various exclusive stories.
1) A long form on Surender Koli, accused in the Nithari serial killings of 2006. He was acquitted after spending 2 decades in jail. was a branded man. Deemed the “cannibal" who allegedly lured children to his employer’s house in Noida, murdered them, and “ate their flesh” – his actions cited were cited as evidence of human depravity at its worst. However, the SC acquitted him finding various lapses in the investigation. The Indian Express spoke to his lawyers and traced the 2 decades journey.
2) For decades, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been at the forefront of the Government’s national rankings, placed at No. 2 over the past two years alone. It has also been the crucible of campus activism, its protests often spilling into national debates, its student leaders going on to become the faces and voices of political parties of all hues and thoughts. The Indian Express looked at all court cases spanning over two decades and did an investigation.
3) Investigation on the 700 Delhi riots cases. The Indian Express found that in 17 of 93 acquittals (which amounted to 85% of the decided cases) in Delhi riots cases, courts red-flag ‘fabricated’ evidence and pulled up the police.
Signature Style
Nirbhay’s writing is characterized by its procedural depth. He excels at summarizing 400-page chargesheets and complex court orders into digestible news for the general public.
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