Eight provisions of VB-G RAM G Act challenged before Madras High Court

A public interest litigation challenges eight provisions of the VB-G RAM G Act, claiming it undermines rural employment guarantees from MGNREGA.

A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court challenging eight provisions of the Viksit Bharat- Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-G RAM G Act) of 2025 which had replaced the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of 2005.

The PIL plea is expected to be listed for hearing before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan this week. Seventy-one-year-old advocate T. Sivagnanasambandan of T. Nagar in Chennnai had filed the case through his counsel on record M.L. Ravi.

In his affidavit, the litigant stated the MGNREGA had been one of the world’s largest social security initiatives which had been studied and evaluated intensively by multiple organisations. All those studies had recognised its transformative effects on the weaker sections of society, he claimed.

“The MGNREGA exempted State governments from most of the financial burden since the cost sharing ratio between the Centre and the States was 90:10. But now, as per the new Act, the cost sharing ratio is 90:10 only for north eastern and himalayan States and 60:40 for others,” he complained.

Similarly, the MGNREGA granted greater autonomy to village panchayats, in accordance with the 73rd Constitutional amendment, by making them the principal implementation authority but the VB-G RAM G Act had bid “good bye” to those constitutional guarantees given to panchayats, the petitioner lamented.

Claiming the MGNREGA and other beneficial legislations such as the National Food Security Act of 2013 had prevented hunger deaths during COVID-19, the petitioner said: “The demolition of MGNREGA now will have a catastrophic impact on crores of people across rural India.”