Mainstream WeeklyAgriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan in his article ’ The VB -Ram G Act 2025 fixes structural gaps in HinduDec24,2025 written like a tutorial by MA student in clumsy language that binary model or welfare vs development in the law. No explanation for removal of the right based law like MGNREGA which is appreciated by workers and scholars. Minister needs to explain what are the reasons for striking down the important labour law related to rural India. He is unable to defend new law . It seems that it is being framed by the forces outside India. American interest in entering into Indian agriculture is there and under their pressures the important labour law for protecting the rural poor has been replaced with the new law.
The winter will not be the same for rural labour as their right to work with a minimum wage has been snatched by the Modi government, it was right based work demanding from the state and its agencies like Block office to Panchayat to gramsabha. The planning of works is done at the gramsabha meeting such as the irrigation channels or digging of community ponds or wells or embankment and these worked get done by the workers who get the wage fixed by the state and if necessary they can get the wage through either the post office or bank, This was an empowerment process where workers started debating with the state and legislature for getting work done, This was worked out in terms providing Rawls theory of justice that it has moral and ethical dimension that the last man on the margin of the society gets justice, Here pyramid structure of state works from the central government which alloacates finacnial resources to the states for working out the rural project with the help of rural poor. It is sthe state government provides little money for making the project successful. District administration monitors the works and payment of wage to worker. Block officials plan in consultation with gramsabha and pachayat. Various layers of the state stand in front of th workers standing on the roads to get justice from the state. This is the msot imaginative piece of legislation for poor of the country.
NREGA is a partly gift of Sonia Gandhi as she took initiative in formulating pro poor public policy. It was stressed by leading Marxist economist Narashiha Reddy from Hyderbad. It is a fact the the Congress as a aprty takes left of the centre stand over various social and economic issues confronting the state. She later made an advisory council consisting of social activists like Aruna Roy and Prof Dreze and civil servant like N C Saxena qho worked as the Secretary of Ministry of Rural development. All of them played a criital role in framing the policy of National Rural employment Guarantee act. Two years after Mahatma Gandhi go added to it as Gandhi always dreamt of acting for the poor/NREGA has a political and intellectual history behind in formulation. It was much debated public policy among social activists and intellectuals and political activists, In the debate group of bureaucrats showed their stiff opposition to the formulation of the policy. There was a strong opposition from Industry. The poltiics behind the policy is this that the alliance between left and the Congress which made it possible as left was aware of the sufferings of the rural poor and their struggle for survival. In most parts of India the minimum wage was not paid. In Odisha the iron law of one gauni rice was fixed for a century for he labour in rural works, It got broke sometimes during the last phase of Biju Patnaik rule but in reality with the coming of NREGA it started working all over Odisha.
Working of the NREAGA has been conducted by many public institutions and found it has benefited the poor. The study conducted by IIPA on impact of NREGA on Bihar and found that for the first two years the labour migration to Punjab has virtually reduced. The pujanjb farmers started moving on their field with their mboilses to invite the labour from Biahr. It increased the wage of the Bihari labour in Punjab and also working of the act shaped the rural society of Bihar.
Antoehr study condcute by IHD found that wage of labour in drought prone districts of Rajsthan improved the wage of laobur and labour migration to Gujarat got virtually stopped. We did a study in the case of Gujarat and found the rural poor are able to articulate a voice in Gujarat which they lost to landlords of the state.
Working of NREAG broke the low wage working for centuries in Odisha and their wage suddenly spurt up to three hundred and it is increasing every year and reached the 450 now. Most of the rural Labour used to migrate to different parts of India and starte working in Odiahs. Most of the skilled labour still getting migrated to Tamilndau and kerala at higher wage.
After Modi came to power he pooh-poohed the NREAG as used to be his anti poor thinking. But he got forced during the Covid time to increase the allocation of budgetary allocations for the fpr the Ministry of Rural Development which is nodal ministry in handling the subject.
It seems that American pressures on Modi is working to scrap the law related to NREGA and brought a lw which is for protecting the landlords of rural India. Provision of cheap labour is getting ensured by scrapping the act and helping the American interest in India into agriculture
The law related to NREAGA got interpreted by the courts of India and tried to view the cases against the state in sympathetic manner. That wage needs to be increased with cost of life gets increased. Furthermore the law protects the labour by interpreting the law that compensation to be paid to the labour where working of the NREGA has stopped. Social auditing tuned into an important work of the independent schools and trade unions of India.
Most of the states have opposition governments like Tamilnadu, Kerala and Bengal where the working of the NREGA is keeping the support of labour for these governments. By breaking the law into new law which is supply based act rather than demand based law may create social base for the BJP and its allies as they depend on the landlord