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The Telangana Congress party on Saturday staged a protest in front of the Mahatma Gandhi Statue on M.G. Road, Secunderabad, condemning the VB-G RAM G Bill 2025, which Parliament recently passed.
The Opposition has been protesting against the VB-G RAM G Bill primarily because it repeals the MGNREGA and removes Mahatma Gandhi's name from the flagship rural employment program. The opposition alleges that the bill weakens the legal "right to work" and imposes a heavy financial burden on states through a new 60:40 funding split. Meanwhile, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh slammed the government's hasty passage of the bill amid uproar in both Houses of Parliament. He contrasted the bill's introduction, details of which he claims the opposition knew only days prior, against MGNREGA's enactment in 2005, which involved years of deliberation, a Standing Committee review, and unanimous bipartisan support. Post the passage of the bill, he shared a cartoon on X that said: "All new A.C.R.O.N.Y.M MANTRALAYA - Administrative Commission For Renewing Old Names - New Yet Meaningless." He captioned the post saying, "The PM is suffering from a case of acute acronoym-itis." During the winter session of Parliament, the Parliament on Friday passed the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB--G RAM G) Bill, with Rajya Sabha approving the legislation after it got the nod of the Lok Sabha. The Bill guarantees 125 days of wage employment per rural household, up from the existing 100 days, for adult members willing to undertake unskilled manual work. As per Section 22 of the Bill, the fund-sharing pattern between the Central Government and the State Governments will be 60:40, while for the North Eastern States, Himalayan States, and Union Territories (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir), it will be 90:10. Section 6 of the Bill allows the state governments to notify in advance, a period aggregating to sixty days in a financial year, covering the peak agricultural seasons of sowing and harvesting. Lok Sabha had passed the bill on Thursday amid protest and sloganeering by opposition members. (ANI)
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