PoliticsRural jobs
'Yet another jumla': Jairam Ramesh says final VB-G RAM G grievance rules gut the draft
The Congress leader listed a string of safeguards for rural workers that he says were dropped between the May draft and the rules notified on Monday.
Key points
- Jairam Ramesh called the new grievance rules "yet another jumla" on Wednesday.
- He said the penalty for missing deadlines and the FIR clause were deleted from the draft.
- The rural development ministry notified the rules on 2 November.
The Congress on Wednesday accused the Centre of hollowing out the complaint system for rural workers, with general secretary Jairam Ramesh calling the new grievance rules under the VB-G RAM G Act “yet another jumla”.
The Union Ministry of Rural Development notified the grievance redressal rules on 2 November. Ramesh, who is in charge of communications for the party, said in a post on X that the final version had quietly dropped many of the protections promised in the draft rules published in May. Workers’ rights, he said, “will remain on paper/in the cloud.”
What he says went missing
The draft had said that failing to settle a grievance within seven working days would count as a breach of the Act and “attract action under Section 27”. Ramesh said that penalty was deleted, even though the timelines stay. A clause asking the District Programme Coordinator to make sure an FIR was lodged wherever there was prima facie evidence of financial irregularities had also gone, he said.
Several other draft provisions were cut too, according to Ramesh: review of complaints at Intermediate and District Panchayat meetings, a fixed weekly day for receiving grievances, grievance desks in every block and district, and quarterly reports to the state government. The final rules let officials examine records but “do not expressly require physical verification,” he said.
Escalation of complaints after 15 days stays mandatory, but no longer explicitly automatic. The grievance machinery now names only the Gram Panchayat, Block and District levels, dropping the state tier, though other levels can be designated. The draft’s 45-day appeal window and 30-day disposal deadline have been replaced by a reference to “Schedule I of the Act”, and the rules lean on a “Central Government-designated digital platform”.
A running fight
Ramesh also said millions of workers are unable to mark attendance on the National Mobile Monitoring System or receive wages through the Aadhaar-Based Payment System. The VB-G RAM G Act replaced MGNREGA on 1 July, and the Congress has opposed the overhaul from the start.
The government had not responded to his criticism by Wednesday evening.