By Gitika Sharma
On 22 December 2025, in support of a holistic agenda of economic development to enhance rural livelihoods, President Draupadi Murmu has approved the Viksit Bharat- Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 to strengthen the statutory rural employment guarantee to 125 days per household per fiscal year. The Act supersedes the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005, and establishes a new statutory framework in line with the national development agenda of Viksit Bharat @2047. This Act seeks to convert rural employment into an all-encompassing development intervention that applies empowerment, inclusive growth, convergence and saturation-based delivery.
Under the law the rural households where the adult does unskilled manual work are entitled to not less than 125 days a year of wage employment. This benefits more than the 100 day guarantee which was first introduced to improve income security for the marginalized people and ensure that they can make a living.
The plans will be digitally connected to national platforms such as PM Gati Shakti, to allow departments to serve all of the needs, but it also gives them voice. The States may notify a total aggregated pause period not to exceed 60 days per annum for the maximum access to agricultural farm during the high season and not influence the total access to 125-day work grant. The Act requires weekly or 15-day wages to be paid when work is complete. Workers will also be paid for delays. It is reinstated as a statutory protection unemployment allowance also if there is a delay in the provision of work for the relevant period.
The Act locates employment in durable rural construction programmes under priority sectors in the areas of water security, fundamental rural infrastructure, livelihood development, and climate resilience. As a proposed centrally-sponsored scheme, the Act would run on a 60:40 Centre–State pay-out system, with the NE and Himalayas receiving special allowances and fully central financing for Union Territories without legislatures.
Viksit Bharat–G RAM G Act, 2025 is a bold move for reviving rural employment architecture in India. The Act made the creation of rural employment a pillar of sustainable and successful long-term prospects in rural Bharat by increasing the number of fixed levels of paid employment, strengthening the institutions of the Panchayat, ensuring greater responsibilities, and the linkage of work to creation of fixed and permanent assets.