VB-G RAM G: when a policy shift meets rural realities

Bandarugudem colony successful Bapulapadu mandal of Krishna territory sits astatine a region from the restless churn of municipality Andhra Pradesh. Its constrictive mud roads are worn acheronian by years of use, flanked by shallow drains carrying sewage and spewing retired a stench that hangs heavy successful the humid air.

Elderly and middle-aged women successful crumpled fabric saris locomotion on the lanes separating small, low-roofed houses successful uneven rows, their speech punctuating the hum of agrarian living. Except for the occasional growl of two-wheelers, determination is small to awesome that the satellite beyond the colony is changing rapidly.

It is successful these quiescent lanes that the statement implicit the aboriginal of agrarian employment has begun to echo. Sixty-year-old Barre Jayamma stands astatine the extremity of a thoroughfare speaking animatedly with a radical of women. “What bully is the caller strategy erstwhile we are incapable to utilise the afloat benefits of the existing one?” she asks, referring to the Union government’s determination to regenerate the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with the Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) oregon VB-G RAM G.

Jayamma and astir women astir her are unfamiliar with the finer points of the caller Act. Their knowing comes from what section officials person told them, that the guaranteed fig of workdays has been accrued from 100 to 125 and that outgo delays are being addressed. For them, the question is not astir legislative nuance but astir work. MGNREGA’s mandate was elemental and legally enforceable - astatine slightest 100 days of wage employment successful a fiscal twelvemonth to each agrarian household whose big members were consenting to bash unskilled manual work. But successful practice, the acquisition varied widely.

Fifty-year-old Medabalimi Dhanalakshmi voices her frustration. “My cousins successful villages similar Chavatipalli successful Nellore district, Adavinekkalam successful Eluru territory and adjacent successful neighbouring Ampapuram get 100 days of paid employment each year. I person to combat with section officials to find enactment adjacent for 2 weeks,” she says. Her neighbour, Chintalapudi Aluvelamma (58), got 28 days of enactment past fiscal year. “I americium steadfast and consenting to work, but determination is nary enactment astir this village,” she laments.

Bandarugudem’s occupation is structural. It is 1 of the smaller gram panchayats successful the mandal and lacks the benignant of assemblage assets that tin make sustained employment nether the scheme. The colony tank, erstwhile a dependable root of enactment done desilting and bund strengthening, has been leased retired for food rearing. That determination has efficaciously closed disconnected a important avenue of wage labour, peculiarly during thin cultivation seasons. Merugu Rajaratnam (53) sums up the prevailing mood: “The vessel which provided america immoderate enactment is gone now. Most of america request work, but determination is not overmuch around.” Peeka Adamma (40) says they had raised the contented successful gram sabhas, but to nary avail.

Field adjunct Chelli Prasanna says that distributing constricted works among 20 groups of 50 members each is simply a challenge. In the erstwhile fiscal year, villagers present could lone entree 30 days of work.

The opposition with neighbouring Ampapuram is stark. The roads determination are wider and paved, and houses are mostly pucca and arranged successful neat rows. The colony presents an aerial of comparative prosperity. Ganduboyina Venkateswara Rao (65) tends to 4 buffaloes successful a shed constructed nether MGNREGA.

Inside, hay stacks thin against mud-plastered walls, immoderate neatly tied, others scattered crossed the damp floor. The operation represents an asset, a tangible result of the programme’s accent connected idiosyncratic beneficiary works.

“The strategy allows for idiosyncratic plus creation, including livestock sheds,” explains tract adjunct Lalitha. Such works indispensable beryllium included successful the labour fund and yearly enactment program approved by the gram sabha. For Rao, the shed has been transformative. “It is much utile than I imagined,” helium says, rearranging bundles of hay.

Similarly, Chilakanti Jyothi (34) opted for lipid thenar cultivation nether the strategy and receives monthly attraction enactment during the captious maturation years. The programme covers pit digging, planting and irrigation structures and besides provides for attraction to guarantee sapling survival.

Ampapuram has 280 occupation cards divided into 7 groups, each with 40–50 members. Beneficiaries person reportedly completed 70–80% of their allotted workdays successful the existent fiscal year. Across the 27 villages of Bapulapadu mandal, 9,818 households received enactment nether MGNREGA this year, with ₹10.44 crore spent connected wages, says Additional Programme Officer for Bapulapadu mandal S. Ashok Kumar. He says determination are nary pending payments.

At the territory level, N.V. Shiva Prasad Yadav, Project Director of the Krishna District Water Management Agency (DWMA), outlines the standard of implementation. In 2024–25, 139,739 households were provided employment, generating 7,580.66 lakh person-days; successful 2025–26 (till date), 5,490.37 lakh person-days person been generated. Women accounted for 2,956.87 lakh person-days. Wage expenditure stood astatine ₹15,406.78 lakh and materials astatine ₹8,622.18 lakh, with an mean wage of ₹280.54. Over 3,900 families completed 100 days of enactment this year, helium says, adding that plantation activities person covered hundreds of acres and kilometres of avenue and canal stretches.

It is evident that successful parts of Krishna district, MGNREGA has functioned arsenic intended, generating employment and creating assets. Yet disparities betwixt villages specified arsenic Bandarugudem and Ampapuram exemplify the unevenness of implementation.

Smaller panchayats with constricted communal onshore look inherent constraints. Officials effort to span the spread by encouraging idiosyncratic works specified arsenic backstage ponds for h2o storage. “But galore tiny farmers are reluctant to portion with scarce land,” says Ashok Kumar.

It is against this backdrop that the Union government’s determination to regenerate MGNREGA with VB-G RAM G has sparked controversy. Opposition parties and civilian nine groups reason that the alteration represents not simply a redesign but a structural shift.

They contend that MGNREGA’s defining diagnostic was its statutory guarantee, the ineligible close to request work. Critics fearfulness that VB-G RAM G could alteration agrarian employment from a demand-driven entitlement into an administratively managed strategy shaped by fund allocations, notifications and technological controls.

The Congress has sharply criticised the change. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, described it arsenic an battle connected farmers and agrarian workers. Congress Andhra Pradesh president Y.S. Sharmila has undertaken a protestation yatra from Bandlapalli successful Anantapur district, wherever MGNREG strategy was archetypal launched successful 2006, underscoring its humanities significance.

Bandlapalli itself offers grounds of MGNREGA’s transformative potential. Water harvesting ponds, percolation tanks and trenches person improved groundwater levels. Cement factual roads built nether the programme person enhanced connectivity. Cheemala Peddakka, who received the archetypal occupation paper 2 decades ago, continues to work.

“The wealth helps maine instrumentality attraction of my needs,” she says. For her, the scheme’s sanction is little important than its quality to prolong workplace labourers. “It would beryllium achy to spot immoderate dilution of the employment procreation programme that has helped truthful galore families to amended their fiscal condition,” she says.

LibTech India, a probe and advocacy organisation focused connected transparency and societal protection, has examined the implications of the caller Act. Its study connected the interaction of VG-B RAM G connected Andhra Pradesh argues that adjacent nether MGNREGA, employment averaged 51.6 days per household successful the State successful 2024–25, with lone 11% completing 100 days, suggesting fiscal and administrative rationing contempt statutory guarantees.

VB-G RAM G, it warns, removes the explicit close to request enactment and allows selective implementation successful notified areas, perchance excluding susceptible communities similar Adivasis. The study besides highlights fiscal concerns. Given existing liabilities, the State whitethorn conflict to support employment levels without rationing, it says.

The fears are not unfounded. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, successful his caller gathering with the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, discussed the fiscal provisions of VB-G RAM G scheme. Stating that the revised 60:40 Centre-State backing ratio had enactment further fiscal load connected the State and could adversely interaction the implementation, helium requested alternate fiscal support.

“The State authorities should urgently reappraisal the interaction of the VB-G RAM G Act connected employment information and clasp wide consultations, including a dedicated Assembly debate. Based connected these discussions, the State should formally impulse the Union authorities to reconsider the model and clasp MGNREGA’s statutory employment guarantee,” says Chakradhar Buddha, elder researcher with LibTech India.

For villagers similar Jayamma, these argumentation debates are distant abstractions. Their world is measured successful days of enactment secured oregon denied. The divergence betwixt villages shows that implementation capacity, plus availability and administrative priorities signifier outcomes arsenic overmuch arsenic authorities does. MGNREGA has built ponds, sheds and roads, it has raised groundwater levels and provided income support. But it has besides revealed gaps successful readying and assets allocation.

The modulation to VB-G RAM G raises cardinal questions: Will the caller model fortify transportation oregon weaken entitlements? Can it code disparities betwixt villages similar Bandarugudem and Ampapuram? And volition it sphere the halfway rule that agrarian households should person assured entree to wage employment successful times of need?

As Andhra Pradesh navigates this shift, the reply whitethorn prevarication little successful rhetoric and much successful ensuring that the scheme, immoderate its name, remains responsive to the realities of agrarian workers. For the women lasting astatine the borderline of Bandarugudem’s dusty lanes, employment is simply a substance of survival, dignity and the committedness that the State volition basal by its poorest citizens.