MGNREGA workers asks President to scrap VB-GRAM act

A Maha Panchayat of MGNREGA Workers in Karnataka on Monday petitioned the President of India to withdraw the VB-G RAM G act and bring back the UPA-era employment guarantee scheme immediately.

MGNREGA Protection Coalition - Karnataka has sent a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu in this regard.  “With great pain and concern, we are writing this letter to you. On February 2, 2026, more than 10,000 rural agricultural workers (including women, Dalits, landless labourers, small farmers) from various parts of the State gathered at Freedom Park, Bengaluru, as part of the Mahapanchayat,” the memorandum said. 

“We are preparing and submitting this memorandum to you from Freedom Park, where the Mahapanchayat is being held. We earnestly request your immediate intervention in our distress,” it added.  It has been 20 years since the MGNREGA was enacted on the simple principle that workers struggling for employment should get work in their own villages with minimum wages, the Maha panchayat said.  “Another key objective of this law was the conservation of local natural resources and environmental protection, so that these resources would continue to generate employment for local people in the future. Desilting village tanks, canals and streams to ensure water retention, soil conservation, and creating more work in farmers’ fields were all integral to this vision,” it added.  Noting that there are 26 crore registered workers in MGNREGA, the Maha Panchayat said, in Karnataka alone, 1.79 crore people are registered.  More than half of them are women, and about 30 per cent are Dalits and Adivasis. “A law that provided employment to rural people on such a massive scale should have grown stronger every year.

Instead, over the past 11 years, the BJP-led Union Government has steadily weakened this law — tightening central controls, denying adequate financial support.

As a consequence, wage payments have been routinely delayed,” it said.  Excessive digitisation has resulted in workers not getting paid despite having worked, and crores of job cards have been deleted. Despite all these problems, for lakhs of families in Karnataka, MGNREGA has remained a lifeline, it added.

Alleging that in December 2025, the Union Government suddenly and without any prior consultation repealed MGNREGA and in its place enacted a new law called VB-GRAM G Act, which was “rushed through in the Parliament, the memorandum said.

This new law does not address any of the prevailing challenges that MGNREGA was facing. Instead, the VB-GRAMG Act will only increase corruption.  “Decisions about where work should be carried out and what kind of work should be done are now taken entirely by the Union Government. Under MGNREGA, State Governments had to contribute only 10 per cent of the funds,” it said. “Under the new law, states must contribute 40 per cent. When the Union Government already owes large sums to Karnataka, imposing this additional burden is unjust,” it further said.