Agartala: The Central Government has amended MGNREGA and introduced a new legislation titled the “VB GRAM G Act 2025”, aimed at strengthening overall rural development across the country and bringing greater transparency.
This was informed by Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Ratan Lal Nath today while addressing a press conference.
The Minister conveyed his thanks to Union Minister for Rural Development and Agriculture Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for this landmark initiative.
He said that the new Act will ensure 125 mandays, whereas earlier it was limited to 100 days.
“For this new Act, more funds will be allocated. During the Congress regime from 2005 to 2014, Rs 2 lakh 13,000 crore was kept in the Central Budget for MGNREGA. However, after PM Modi came to power, from 2015 to 2025, the amount increased to Rs 7 lakh 80,000 crore. The present government has taken positive steps for rural development,” he said.
The Minister informed that in Tripura, during the last seven years after 2018, Rs 7,801 crore was allocated, while during the seven years before 2018, the amount was Rs 6,490 crore.
“Using MGNREGA, 8 lakh 10,000 assets were created, while 6,67,332 assets were created during the seven years before 2018. Wage payments directly benefiting rural households amounted to Rs 5,332 crore in the last seven years, as against Rs 4,240 crore during the previous period before 2018. Currently, Tripura has 6.56 lakh job cards and 10.20 lakh registered workers under the scheme. For North Eastern states, the Centre provides 90 percent of the funding, with only 10 percent contributed by the states. The new law places strong emphasis on water conservation, water security, asset creation, livelihood generation, rural infrastructure, and climate change mitigation. Administrative expenditure, earlier capped at 6 percent, has now been increased to 9 percent to improve implementation efficiency,” he said.
The Minister informed that earlier, workers often faced delays in receiving wages. Under the reformed system, wages are now directly transferred to workers’ bank accounts, ensuring transparency and timely payments. The new law is fully digitally driven, aimed at eliminating corruption and leakages.
He also said that large-scale corruption occurred during the Left Front regime under MGNREGA.
“In Bishalgarh block, a Rs 17 crore scam was exposed in the CAG (AG) report. Following audits and investigations, cases were registered at Bishalgarh Police Station, charge sheets were filed against 12 accused in 40 cases, and the matter is currently pending in the High Court,” he said.
The Minister further informed that Tripura has shown consistent performance in MGNREGA implementation, ranking 2nd in 2020–21, 3rd in 2021–22, 4th in 2022–23, and again 4th in 2023–24 at the national level.
