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Punjab: VB-G RAM G will hit poor, SC families, says minister Sond
The cabinet minister has said the new scheme will severely impact below-poverty-line families, Scheduled Caste communities, and rural labourers who depend on it for survival
Cabinet minister Tarunpreet Singh Sond on Saturday strongly criticised the Union Government’s “Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission - Gramin (VB-G RAM G)”, calling it a ‘black law’ that directly attacks the livelihood of millions of MGNREGA labourers and shifts the financial burden onto states.
Addressing a press conference, Sond claimed that the new scheme will severely impact below-poverty-line families, Scheduled Caste communities, and rural labourers who depend on it for survival.
He alleged that the Centre is trying to hit two targets with one go—first weakening guaranteed employment and also burdening the states financially. “While the Centre claims the new scheme will provide 125 days of work compared to 100 days under MGNREGA, official data shows that the BJP-led government managed to provide only an average of 45 days of work last year,” he said.
Sond said that wages for unskilled labour were earlier fully funded by the Centre, and material costs were shared in a 75:25 ratio, but this has been changed to 60:40 under the new scheme.
He said these changes will put an additional annual burden of ₹600 crore on Punjab.
He further claimed that the new scheme has no guarantee of work during peak agricultural seasons, removes unemployment allowance provisions, centralises decision-making on village-level works, limits permissible works, and replaces social audits with AI-driven biometric and geo-tagging systems. The AAP government has called a special assembly session on December 30 to pass a resolution against the new scheme.
