[Answered] Examine the assertion that the shift from MGNREGA to RAM G transforms an employment guarantee into labour control. Critically analyze its implications for landless labourers and agricultural wages.

Introduction

MGNREGA provided legal wage security to nearly 26 crore workers annually; World Bank and ILO studies credit it with poverty reduction, wage stabilisation and counter-cyclical employment, making its dilution a serious socio-economic concern.

Rights-based Guarantee vs Scheme-based Control

1. MGNREGA Framework: A justiciable right to work, demand-driven, with time-bound wage payments and unemployment allowance.
2. RAM G Shift: Converts a statutory right into a conditional, allocation-driven scheme, weakening enforceability.
3. Core Assertion: From worker entitlement to state-managed labour supply.

Fiscal Federalism and Cost Burden

1. Earlier Model: Centre bore 100% unskilled wage cost, ensuring uniform wage assurance.
2. RAM G Cost Sharing: 60:40 (general states), 90:10 (special states), shifting ₹50,000+ crore burden to states.
3. Implication: Poorer states may ration work → reduced bargaining power of labour.

Demand-driven Employment vs Budget Caps

1. MGNREGA Principle: Work followed demand; fiscal stress did not extinguish rights.
2. RAM G Normative Allocation: Pre-fixed ceilings decided by Centre; excess spending penalised.
3. Outcome: “When funds run out, rights run out.”

Labour Control through Work Suspension

1. Mandatory 60-day No-Work Period: Coinciding with peak agricultural seasons.
2. Economic Effect: Forces landless workers into private farms.
3. ILO Insight: Public employment programmes raise rural wages by strengthening fallback options; withdrawal depresses wages.

Impact on Landless Labourers

1. Loss of Fallback Employment: Landless households rely most on MGNREGA during lean seasons.
2. Increased Vulnerability: Greater dependence on landlords, advances, tied labour.
3. Empirical Evidence: Studies by Azim Premji University show MGNREGA increased women’s participation and reduced distress migration.

Agricultural Wages and Labour Markets

1. MGNREGA Effect: Raised real agricultural wages (especially SC/ST and women workers).
2. RAM G Risk: Artificial labour oversupply during sowing/harvest → wage suppression.
3. Case Study: Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh showed wage convergence upwards due to MGNREGA floor wages.

Decentralisation vs Technocratic Centralisation

1. Earlier System: Gram Panchayat-led planning via Gram Sabhas.
2. RAM G Tools: GIS layers, PM Gati Shakti, biometrics, AI audits.
3. Concern: Tech failures → exclusion without grievance redressal; people reduced to datasets.

Social Inclusion and Representation

1. MGNREGA Councils: Mandated representation of women, SCs, STs, OBCs, minorities.
2. RAM G Central Council: Omission of reservation criteria signals elite capture.
3. Normative Risk: Weakening voice of the most affected workers.

Political Economy Perspective

1. Employment Guarantee: Strengthens labour’s exit option (Amartya Sen).
2. Labour Control Regime: Aligns with landlord interests by disciplining labour supply.
3. Governance Shift: From welfare state logic to managerial state logic under Narendra Modi’s development narrative.

Conclusion

Dismantling social protection re-commodifies labour; evidence from NSS, ILO and World Bank suggests RAM G risks reversing MGNREGA’s hard-won gains in dignity and wages.