The Lok Sabha on Thursday (18 December 2025) passed the Viksit Bharat ' Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Bill, 2025, marking a major overhaul of rural employment policy. The new law replaces the two-decade-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005.

The legislation aligns rural development with the government's Viksit Bharat @2047 vision. It provides a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment each financial year to every rural household whose adult members are willing to undertake unskilled manual work.

Under the Bill, the Centre and states will share funding in a 60:40 ratio for most states. For northeastern and Himalayan states, the ratio will be 90:10. State governments will continue to bear the cost of unemployment allowance and compensation.

The law introduces greater use of technology. It mandates biometric authentication for transactions, geospatial tools for planning and monitoring, mobile app'based dashboards for real-time tracking, and weekly public disclosure of works. All projects will be integrated into the Viksit Bharat National Rural Infrastructure Stack to create a unified national framework for rural public works.

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