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Hyderabad: Telangana Upaadhi Haami Hakkula Parirakshana Vedika has urged the Telangana government to wholly reject the Viksit Bharat—Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G RAM G) Act, 2025, in pursuance of the spirit of the unanimous resolution passed by the Telangana Legislative Assembly opposing it.

In a letter addressed to Panchayatraj Minister Danasari Anasuya alias Seethakka on Monday, the collective of various people’s organisations urged the state government to immediately institute a well-researched and legally sound constitutional challenge against the amended Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005, in the Supreme Court.

The collective also urged the state government to introduce comprehensive state-level legislation in the upcoming assembly session to uphold and strengthen employment guarantee for manual work to rural households, and to immediately call for a state-level consultation with various stakeholders, preferably before June 20.

The collective stated that the VB-G RAM G Act was an assault on millions of poor and workers of rural India by subverting the rights-based, demand-driven, bottom-up planning of employment guarantee works and its priority, and decentralised structure of the earlier MGNREGA 2005, which was legislated during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA-I) regime.

“By unilaterally imposing a fund-sharing pattern of 60:40 upon the states, replacing the 90:10 sharing in MGNREGA 2005, and ensuring that the state governments are devoid of any independence in implementation of the Act, the VB-G RAM G is also a serious breach of principles of federalism and constitutional norms of Centre-State relations,” the collective cautioned.

“NREGA was a people’s Act – the culmination of years of workers’ struggles and grassroots mobilisation. Its replacement with an opaque, arbitrary, techno-heavy and undemocratic statute constitutes a direct assault on worker rights. The draft rules make abundantly clear what unions have asserted for years: that the current Central Government has no concern for workers’ interests,” the collective noted.

“The rules retain some of the very features introduced under MGNREGA, that workers across the country have been protesting against for over five years – in particular, the coercive use of technology and abysmally low wage rates,” the letter pointed out.

It was stated that despite repeated assurances from the Union Ministry of Rural Development that NREGA would continue smoothly until VB-G RAM G commences, the ground reality has been starkly different.

Across many states, the collective alleged that local officials were not accepting work demand applications or opening worksites, and over Rs 3,200 crore in wage payments were still pending from Financial Year 25-26.

It was also pointed out that the Ministry of Rural Development’s own data showed that NREGA employment between April 2025 and April 2026 was 57 per cent lower, with a 49 per cent decline in May, and that the facial recognition-related issues were causing havoc with attendance, leading to significant exclusions. 

“We believe that the challenge that VB-G RAM G poses to the state government and the rural poor of Telangana is an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to the tag-line ‘Prajapalana‘ (people’s governance, and that it is duty-bound to protect the rural poor from the vagaries of VB-G RAM G,” the collective urged.