Viksit Bharat Rozgar Act vs MGNREGA: Why Rural Women May Lose the Most

The proposed Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-G RAM G) promises an expanded welfare net by increasing guaranteed employment from 100 to 125 days. On paper, this looks like a clear upgrade from the existing framework under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In practice, however, the redesign risks hollowing out the very idea of a “work guarantee” — with rural women likely to bear the brunt of the change.

What the New Law Promises — and What It Changes

VB-G RAM G is being pitched as a more generous rural employment programme, extending the number of guaranteed workdays. But unlike MGNREGA’s demand-driven architecture, the new framework reportedly introduces tighter conditions on job availability and access. This effectively weakens the guarantee element, potentially affecting over 26 crore rural workers who rely on predictable wage employment when local labour markets fail.

For women, whose participation in paid work is often constrained by social norms, care responsibilities and mobility, the certainty of guaranteed work matters as much as the number of days offered.

Why MGNREGA Has Been Uniquely Important for Women

India’s low female labour force participation rate (FLFPR) has long worried economists and policymakers. Even the recent rise in FLFPR is largely driven by women’s increased involvement in unpaid work on family farms or household enterprises — not by a surge in paid, independent employment.

Against this backdrop, women’s participation in MGNREGA stands out. The share of women in total person-days rose steadily from 48 per cent in 2008–09 to nearly 58 per cent in 2024–25. This resilience — through political transitions and even the pandemic — underscores MGNREGA’s role as a rare source of dignified, paid work for rural women.

Several features explain this success:

• The social legitimacy attached to government-provided employment.
• Worksites close to home, reducing travel time and costs.
• Provision of crèches, enabling women with young children to participate.
• Legally mandated equal wages, reinforced by direct bank transfers.

Together, these elements reduced women’s financial dependence on male family members and strengthened their bargaining power within households.

Patriarchy, Precarity and the First Exclusion

Rural labour markets remain deeply patriarchal. Women are often treated as a “secondary” workforce, expected to seek paid employment only when household incomes fall short. This perception explains why women are usually the first to be excluded when work availability shrinks.

Under VB-G RAM G, the prospect of reduced and conditional job availability may deepen this pattern. In regions with excess labour supply, women are likely to be crowded out first — reinforcing existing gender hierarchies rather than dismantling them.

What Less Guaranteed Work Means on the Ground

Most rural women, particularly from marginalised communities, are concentrated in agricultural labour. The loss of a reliable 60-day employment cushion during peak agricultural seasons could have cascading effects.

Without MGNREGA as a fallback option:

• Women may be forced into informal, irregular jobs with no wage parity.
• Bargaining power over wages will weaken due to the absence of alternatives.
• Dependence on landowning caste–class groups for work will intensify.
• Working conditions are likely to deteriorate, both economically and socially.

In effect, reduced public employment does not just remove income — it reshapes power relations in rural labour markets, often to women’s disadvantage.

Process Matters: Reform Without Consultation

All large welfare policies require continuous monitoring, evaluation and course correction. Despite its implementation challenges, MGNREGA remained one of the few genuinely demand-driven employment programmes in India’s social policy landscape.

The passage of the VB-G RAM G Bill without meaningful consultation with workers, women’s groups, or state governments marks a sharp departure from that ethos. Instead of repairing implementation gaps — such as delayed payments or uneven work availability — the redesign risks undermining a programme that functioned as an employment guarantee of last resort.

Why the Stakes Are Higher Than Employment Numbers

The debate is not merely about increasing workdays from 100 to 125. It is about whether rural women retain access to predictable, local, fairly paid work when markets fail them. If the guarantee weakens, the cost will not be evenly distributed — it will fall disproportionately on women who had found, in MGNREGA, a rare measure of economic autonomy.

In seeking to rebrand rural employment under the banner of “Viksit Bharat”, policymakers risk dismantling one of the most quietly transformative labour interventions for rural women — without first fixing what truly needed reform.