Punjab Govt To Bring Resolution Against G RAM G Law

The Punjab government will bring a resolution against the VB-G RAM G scheme during the one-day special session of the state assembly on December 30, Cabinet minister Tarunpreet Singh Sond said on Saturday. Criticising the Centre, Sond said the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) law was another "black law" that directly attacks the livelihood of millions of MGNREGA labourers and shifts the financial burden onto states.

He said the new scheme will severely impact below poverty line families, Scheduled Caste communities, and rural labourers who depend on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for survival.

The Centre is trying to "hit two targets with one stone" -- first by "weakening" guaranteed employment and second by burdening states financially, thereby "attacking" India's federal structure, the minister said. Sond pointed out that 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. "Making promises without delivery has become the BJP's habit," he said.

Sond said earlier wages for unskilled labour were fully funded by the Centre and material costs were shared in a 75:25 ratio. Under the new scheme, this has been changed to 60:40, placing an additional annual burden of around Rs 600 crore on Punjab alone, the minister said. He claimed that the new scheme does not guarantee work during peak agricultural seasons, unemployment allowance provisions, centralises decision-making on village-level work, limits permissible work, and replaces social audits with AI-driven biometric and geo-tagging systems.

Sond highlighted that 70 per cent of MGNREGA workers in Punjab are women and shortening the scheme to 10 months will directly hurt them. He announced that the AAP government has called a special assembly session on December 30 to pass a resolution to oppose this move.