Biofuel-based Bioeconomy is a key for the success of VB-G RAM G

India has set its tone to achieve a Viksit Bharat through multiple strategies, one of which is the Viksit Bharat — Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Act, 2025, a bill introduced and passed on 21st December 2025. VB-G RAM G Act replaces the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and aims to overhaul rural employment, by shifting from a demand-driven to a right-to-work scheme, with the primary aim to transform rural employment from a “welfare-based safety net” into an “integrated vehicle for development and empowerment”.

It attempts to realign the rural livelihood framework of India with the national vision of Viksit Bharat @2047, by emphasisingon building of tangible assets around four specific domains, which includewater security (eg groundwater recharge structures), core rural infrastructure ( eg connectivity, roads), livelihood-related infrastructure (eg processing units, storage), and extreme weather mitigation works (eg climate resilience). The act mandates a GP plan with geospatial planning fact sheets. 

VB- G RAM G transitions to a missioned approach with 125 days of employment, which will be allocated more through a Centralised Mission approach and moving out from a demand-centric nature by also reducing the power of Gram Panchayats to formulate the work orders. The Centre will now provide 60 per cent of funds, and the Indian States will have less power to determine the allocation. VB-G RAM G therefore marks a policy shift towards a centralised approach and moving away from a demand-based system.

One of the purposes of the policy shift is tomove from a standalone wage-employment programme to a statutory, integrated rural development architecture aligned with Viksit Bharat@2047 with an intent to expand and reframe the statutory guarantee, make public works more “outcome -driven”, institutionalize convergence across schemes, strengthen decentralised planningwith GIS, creating national rural work registry, upgrade accountability to reduce leakages, avoid adverse effect on agriculture.

This shift creates a policy pathway where wage employment is explicitly tied to climate-resilient, livelihood-generating rural infrastructure, which can be designed to enable biomass-to-biofuel supply chains and circular bioeconomy assets. India’s biofuel mission needs to rely on a rural biomass-dependentbioeconomic industrialization in the long run to attain Viksit Bharat by 2047. The majority of the biofuel feedstock still lies in India’s rural biomass resources, from which more than 70 per cent of the Indian Population is still dependent.

A strong bioeconomy-based biofuel mission can easily integrate with VB-G RAM G and create significant multiplier effects for the rural economy through bioeconomic industrialisation, which can be based on biomass-based feedstocks and employ a Circular Economy (CE) approach, generating livelihoods for a large number of people in rural India.  Integration of these two mission modes through a centralized approach can further trickle down through local-level monitoring structures, which can feed into the centralised mission-based approach.

A strong digital monitoring mechanism and dashboard of these two integrated approaches for particular projects can be created, and their impact can be measured after announcing a particular centralised fund allocation for these two missions (India’s Biofuel Mission and VB G RAM G) integrated projects. Centralised digital dashboard-based platforms need to be created, which will ransparently disseminate the progress, gaps, movement, successes, and failures of these identified projects. Such a measure will also help in redefining and reposition integrated policies by aligning India’s Biofuel Mission and VB-G RAM G.

One of the co-benefitsof the successful implementation of these integrated mission-mode-based policies will also be realised in enhancement of the adaptive capacity of the rural people of India, which will help them to be more climate resilient in the long run and prepare them not only to attain Viksit Bharat but also in the common aspiration of a net zero carbon neutral economy.

However, this will need funds to support. The funds can clearly come from well-defined centralized budgetary lines aligned with the integrated projects, which are created after aligning Biofuel Mission and VB-GRAMG. Budgeting for innovative convergence: funds can be announced, disbursed, allocated, and tracked through digital systems and platforms in a fully transparent way.

The funds can be announced, disbursed, and tracked properly through digital structures and platforms in a completely transparent way, and the program may be implemented through local bodies for effective devolution of power of GP. VB-G RAM G can help turn farm waste into a local value chain: farm residues and dung are collected and managed through VB-G RAM G-supported labour, converted into biogas/clean energy, and the digeState returns as bio-manure to improve soil healthclosing the loop back to farms.

A perfect example of application of Circular Economy principles.  In fact the envisioned model touches on all three pillars of the CE (Eliminate Waste, Circulate Products, Regenerate Nature), the third one is the defining characteristic of this specific biological loop. If it is done well, India will also position itself strongly in relation to all other countries of the Global Biofuel Alliance, of which India is a key partner.

Other countries of the Global Biofuel Alliance can also learn from these integrated policy approaches and financing structures that India can implement towards the attainment of its Viksit Bharat Goal of 2047.  At the end of the day, such cross-learning would also mean not only Viksit Bharat but a Viksit Vishwa with the principles of Vasudev Kutumbakam in the long run.

Anandajit Goswami is an Visiting Professor at Ashoka University.

Animesh Ghosh is a Research Scholar, IIT Kharagpur.