Bhubaneswar: The Congress, under the banner of the Rajiv Gandhi Panchayati Raj Sangathan (RGPRS), on Monday staged a satyagraha at Lower PMG Square here, protesting the alleged replacement of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) with the newly introduced VB–G RAM–G scheme.
Following the protest, party leaders submitted a memorandum to Odisha Governor Hari Babu Kambhampati, urging immediate restoration of MGNREGS.
The agitation was led by Sunil Panwar, National Chairman of RGPRS, along with Sudarshan Das, State Chairperson of RGPRS, and several senior executive body members and supporters. The protesters sat in demonstration, terming the new scheme a dilution of rural workers’ legal rights.
Addressing the gathering, Panwar alleged that the Union government had dismantled a rights-based law that guaranteed employment to the rural poor. “Crores of poor people in the country—the real owners of the nation—have been demanding their rightful share for a long time. The Congress gave them the Right to Work through MGNREGS, a rights-based legislation. However, last month the BJP government abolished the MGNREGS Act in Parliament and brought in a scheme-based law under the name VB–G RAM–G,” he claimed.
Panwar said the key difference between the two frameworks lay in their legal nature. While MGNREGS provided statutory guarantees, VB–G RAM–G, he alleged, was merely a scheme that could be withdrawn at any time. “Under MGNREGS, registered job cardholders had the legal right to demand work within 15 days. That right has now been taken away,” he said.
He further claimed that the new framework had curtailed the powers of Panchayati Raj institutions. “Earlier, panchayats could decide the nature and timing of works in villages, and workers could seek employment in any month of the year. If work was not provided within 15 days, workers were entitled to unemployment allowance. All these safeguards have now been removed, depriving labourers of their rights,” Panwar alleged.
Criticising the revised funding pattern, Panwar said the Centre earlier bore 100 per cent of the wage cost under MGNREGS, with states responsible mainly for administrative expenses. “Now a 60:40 funding ratio has been imposed. States with weak financial capacity will not be able to initiate development works, effectively denying employment to rural workers,” he warned.
Echoing similar concerns, RGPRS Odisha Chairperson Sudarshan Das alleged that the BJP-led government had undermined the spirit of the original MGNREGS Act. He claimed that the introduction of VB–G RAM–G diluted the constitutional intent of the right to work envisaged under the Directive Principles of State Policy.
The Congress leaders demanded the immediate rollback of the new scheme and restoration of MGNREGS in its original form.
