Admittedly, these are early days to assess the new rural employment guarantee programme — the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee of Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025, (VB-G Ram G) — that has completed one month of operations nationwide. The scheme has had a muted beginning at a time kharif sowing operations picked up with the revival of the southwest monsoon in July following a substantial deficiency of 40% below the long period average in June. Overall persondays of employment generated during the first month of the rollout of VB-G Ram G sharply declined by roughly 50% when compared to July 2025 when its predecessor scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), was operational. The proximate cause for this fall was due to the “agriculture pause period” allowed under this scheme as July is a peak month for sowing paddy, coarse cereals, pulses and soya bean.
The pause in operations is a major difference from MGNREGA as VB-G Ram G empowers states to notify periods up to 60 days during peak sowing and harvesting seasons when works shall not be undertaken. This is perhaps to address the needs of farmers in the vanguard agrarian states who have been explicit about their concerns over the years that the guaranteed rural employment scheme with higher wages has been affecting the availability of farm labour during peak agricultural operations. As many as seven states, notably Bihar, Gujarat, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Nagaland, have so far exercised this option. Not surprisingly, persondays of employment generated are much lower year-on-year (y-o-y) in July 2026 although the data is not strictly comparable as a pause was not allowed under MGNREGA. The intriguing exception is Mizoram which generated more y-o-y VB-G Ram G employment last month.
VB-G Ram G has kicked in despite the apprehensions of states ruled by the Opposition regarding the transition to an allocation-based scheme from a demand-driven one. The new scheme has a 60: 40 fund sharing ratio between the Centre and states, which implies that if the latter do not release their share of funds, workers will be hit by lack of work. Nevertheless, they have fallen in line and made their 40% allocations. Tamil Nadu, for instance, has made its contribution to the total VB-G Ram G budget of Rs 12, 642 crore and has reportedly gone one step further ahead in being willing to bear additional expenditure to increase the number of guaranteed employment to 150 from 125 days. The surprise then is that despite not exercising the pause option, persondays of employment generated in that state have sharply fallen y-o-y by 77.7% in July 2026.
All eyes will be on how VB-G RAM G performs in August-September, which are expected to experience below-normal rainfall. Although the overall kharif-sowing deficit has sharply reduced due to the monsoon’s revival in July, there are fresh concerns regarding crop growth and yields. The uneven spatial and temporal spread of rains can adversely impact the standing kharif crops which need good rains at least till early September. If there is distress, the revamped scheme must step in. Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has stated that the government’s priority was to ensure that “no eligible rural worker remains without work even for a single day”. VB-G RAM G indeed faces its real test in handling the fallout of a deficient monsoon this year.