Mita Nath Bora
(mitanathbora7@gmail.com)
India’s commitment to employment guarantees was never meant to be symbolic. It was intended to secure dignity through work and stability through development. When a system begins to deliver neither consistently, defending it becomes an act of complacency, not compassion. For too long, rural India has been trapped between two extremes—neglect disguised as reform and stagnation defended as compassion. True pro-people governance is not about preserving failing structures; it is about correcting them when they stop serving those they were created for. The Viksit Bharat—Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), VB-GRAM-G, emerges from this uncomfortable reality. It is founded on a simple but hard truth: a guarantee must deliver work, dignity, and development to be a guarantee at all. When welfare becomes ritualistic, disconnected from outcomes, and resistant to reform, it ceases to empower the poor and instead begins managing their vulnerability. VB-GRAM-G seeks to break this cycle. It is not a retreat from social justice. It is its long-overdue reclamation.
The MGNREGA was historic. It converted employment from charity into a legal right and provided vital income support during periods of distress. No honest assessment can deny its role in stabilizing rural livelihoods, particularly during economic shocks. But history cannot be used as a shield against accountability. After nearly two decades of implementation, three realities became undeniable: the promised 100 days of employment rarely reached the poorest households, assets created often failed to change village economies or generate sustained productivity, and corruption punished the weakest, while intermediaries and inefficiencies survived. For millions of workers, employment guarantee became a cycle of short-term relief, delayed wages, and fragile hope. For many villages, it translated into half-finished ponds, unused roads, and works that neither generated income nor resilience. The promise of empowerment remained partial, uneven, and uncertain. Calling this “pro-poor” indefinitely is not compassion; it is policy inertia. Social justice cannot be measured by how long a scheme exists but by whether it actually improves lives over time.
VB-GRAM-G is a pro-people correction. It does not dismantle the right to work but rescues it from irrelevance. It accepts that rights must be credible, enforceable, and productive to remain meaningful. VB-GRAM-G raises the guaranteed employment from 100 to 125 days, acknowledging the growing livelihood insecurity in rural India caused by fragmented landholdings, climate variability, and informalization of labour. But the true reform lies beyond numbers. Under previous systems, families often struggled to access even half of the promises made on paper. Administrative uncertainty, delayed approvals, and uneven planning turned a legal right into an aspirational claim. A right that cannot be accessed is not empowerment; it is paperwork.
VB-GRAM-G aligns planning, funding, and execution so that the guarantee actually reaches households, not just files. Predictability replaces arbitrariness. Delivery replaces declaration. For workers, this restores trust. For governance, it restores credibility. For decades, rural workers were offered only wages, never wealth. VB-GRAM-G changes this by explicitly tying employment to productive, development-orientated outcomes, including water security that strengthens agriculture and reduces vulnerability, rural infrastructure that connects villages to markets and services, livelihood assets that generate recurring income, and environmental works that protect future generations from climate stress. This is not cosmetic reform. It is a fundamental shift from consumption-only welfare to development-linked justice. Employment is no longer treated as an isolated income support measure but as a tool for building durable rural capital. A poor family deserves more than daily wages.
They deserve lasting assets in their village.
One of the silent failures of earlier employment schemes was how they unintentionally pitted workers against farmers. During peak agricultural seasons, public works drew labour away from fields, hurting small and marginal farmers, often from the same households that depended on employment guarantee work. VB-GRAM-G ends this contradiction through a defined pause during peak agricultural periods. This correction reflects economic realism and social fairness. The plan is pro-people in the real sense, as workers will receive guaranteed employment, farmers will get labour when they need it most, and rural economies will function as integrated systems, not competing silos. Justice for workers cannot come at the cost of justice for farmers. VB-GRAM-G refuses to choose between the two.
Next comes addressing the corruption issues of MGNREGA. Corruption is not a technical flaw; it is the most brutal anti-poor policy. It steals wages, delays payments, and strips dignity from work. In any welfare system, the weakest suffer the most when governance is opaque. VB-GRAM-G confronts this reality head-on through institutional safeguards, real-time digital attendance, GPS-verified worksites, AI-enabled fraud detection, compulsory social audits, and weekly public data disclosure. It aims to protect the poorest worker from the strongest local exploiters. Transparency ensures that public money reaches public hands and that rights are not hostage to intermediaries.
VB-GRAM-G is structural. Workers will be informed of what they are entitled to, when they must receive work, how to question delays, and how to audit work. This transforms beneficiaries into rights-holders with a voice, not silent dependents. Additionally, a Viksit Bharat cannot be built on endless emergency relief. A developed nation does not trap its rural population in perpetual dependency; it creates pathways out of vulnerability. VB-GRAM-G aims to stabilise incomes during distress; it is focused on building rural capital, strengthening local economies and preparing villages for climate and economic shocks. The outcome is welfare with direction, not welfare without destination. It recognises that empowerment is not about how long support is given but about whether it enables self-reliance over time. Panchayati Raj Institutions are strengthened as planning bodies, and social audits become community processes rather than administrative rituals.
Keeping a system unchanged despite knowing its failures is not kindness; it is neglect. Social justice does not mean preserving inefficiency. It means correcting it. VB-GRAM-G does not weaken social justice; it modernises it. True pro-people policy is not measured by slogans or nostalgia. It is measured by whether a poor family is better off five years later, with assets, resilience, and opportunity. VB-GRAM-G is designed for that test.
All in all, VB-GRAM-G stands for a simple principle: the poor deserve dignity, durability, and development, not just daily survival. This mission is anti-failure and anti-waste. The goal is to reclaim the employment guarantee from ritualism and restore it as a tool for transformation.