‘Taking away livelihoods of poor’: Punjab House passes resolution against G RAM G

The Punjab Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution decrying the Central government’s move to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) with a new law named Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin).

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre of “taking away” the livelihoods of the poor and Dalit labourers under a “deliberate conspiracy”, the House recommended that the Punjab government seek from the Centre to immediately restore the rural job scheme to its original form.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said the Centre has killed the basic spirit of the scheme by changing its name to VB-G RAM (G), which takes away the right to guaranteed wages-employment from poor workers, women, and lakhs of job card holding families and imposes an additional financial burden on the States.

“Earlier MGNREGS, which was carefully conceived by former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, was introduced after years of deliberations. However, now VB-G RAM G has been passed by Parliament only within a few hours,” he said in the House.

Unfortunately, Mr. Mann said, the Centre has changed the basic character of the scheme. The MGNREGS was a demand driven scheme whereas VB - G RAM G is a norm based scheme, which is not in the interest of people.

“During the last financial year, under the MGNREGS implemented in Punjab, the participation of women has been registered at 60% and that for Scheduled castes, it has been 70%, meaning tmajority of the beneficiaries under the MGNREGS belonged to the most marginalised sections of the society,” he said, adding, “With the implementation of the provisions of the new Act, the economic condition of such marginalised sections will worsen with the lack of employment opportunities.”

He said the provisions of the new Act are aimed at weakening both the SCs and women socially and economically, resulting in the widening of inequality, causing further avoidable distress.