New Delhi

The Congress on Saturday criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Union Cabinet approved a Bill to rename the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and increase the number of work days under the scheme. The party alleged that the move is aimed at taking credit for the scheme while masking years of alleged neglect.

Under the approved Bill, MGNREGA will be renamed as the “Poojya Bapu Grameen Rozgar Yojna,” and the guaranteed work days for rural households will rise from 100 to 125 per year.

Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said the PM, who previously described MGNREGA as a “monument of failure,” is now renaming it to claim credit for a programme that he called transformative. “It appears to be a cosmetic exercise to cover up the government’s deliberate neglect of the scheme,” Venugopal said on X.

He further criticised the Centre for reducing allocated funds to MGNREGA over the years, despite growing demands from workers for higher wages. “Arrears continue to accumulate, suggesting a deliberate strategy to slowly undermine the scheme. The government seems more interested in optics than genuine welfare delivery,” he added.

Venugopal also emphasised that the scheme was originally introduced by Dr Manmohan Singh and Smt Sonia Gandhi in 2005, bringing guaranteed wage employment to villages across India.

MGNREGA, India’s flagship rural employment programme, provides at least 100 days of wage work per year to every adult member of rural households volunteering for unskilled manual labour. It was enacted with the aim of enhancing livelihood security in rural areas.

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By renaming the programme and increasing work days, the government seeks to refresh the scheme’s image, though critics argue that structural and funding issues remain unaddressed.