What happened
MGNREGA—India's rural employment guarantee since 2005, covering up to 100 days of work per household—was repealed in December 2025 and replaced by the Viksit Bharat G-RAM G Act, which promises 125 days. The transition has not gone smoothly. Since April 1, officials across India have stopped accepting MGNREGA work applications, blocked new worksites, and effectively shut the scheme down. By April 15, 2026, only 9.5 million persondays had been generated nationally—4 percent of the equivalent figure from April 2025. Nearly Rs 10,000 crore in wages already owed to rural workers have gone unpaid across all states since January 21. The timing compounds the damage: a gas crisis triggered by the West Asia conflict has sent millions of migrant workers back to their villages, where they arrived to find no scheme running on either side of the transition. Draft rules for the new scheme were released on May 23 with a public feedback window that closed June 21—yesterday. The Ministry of Rural Development has not confirmed whether any feedback received will change the July 1 launch. Civil society groups have formally demanded an immediate halt to the rollout. The 25 additional days promised by the new scheme have not been mentioned.