4 min readUpdated: Feb 1, 2026 04:46 PM IST
The Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), VB-G RAM G Scheme, which will replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), did not find mention in Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech Sunday, but it received an allocation of Rs 95,692.31 crore for the financial year 2026-27.
Nirmala Sitharaman has also allocated Rs 30,000 crore for the MGNREGS for the next financial year beginning April 1, which will be replaced once the new scheme VB-G RAM G comes into effect. Taken together, the aggregate allocation under the two heads for rural job programmes will amount to Rs 1,25,692.31 crore.
The allocation under MGNREGS has been revised upward to Rs 88,000 crore for the current financial year at the revised estimate (RE) stage, from the Rs 86,000 crore budgetary estimate (BE) for 2025-26.
In December last year, the government enacted the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, which will replace the two-decade-old MGNREGA, 2005, enacted by the then UPA government. The VB-G RAM G scheme’s allocation is the same as mentioned in the Bill itself.
Unlike MGNREGS, where the Centre paid 100 per cent of the wage bill, the VB G RAM G is a centrally sponsored scheme with the fund sharing ratio of 60-40 between the Centre and states for all states and 90-10 for NER States, Himalayan states and Union Territories with legislature and 100 per cent central share for UT without legislature.
VB G RAM G is aimed at providing a statutory guarantee of 125 days of wage employment in every financial year to every rural household, whose adult members volunteer to undertake unskilled manual work, with the objective to promote empowerment, growth, convergence and saturation for a prosperous and resilient rural Bharat.
Under the MGNREGS, 5.01 crore families have availed unskilled work till February 1 during the current financial year 2025-26.
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Among the Ministry of Rural Development’s schemes, the allocation for Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) has been drastically cut to Rs 32,500 crore at the RE stage for the current financial year, from Rs 54,832 crore in the BE.
For the 2026-27 financial year, the Finance Minister has allocated Rs 54,916.7 crore for PMAY-G. Similarly, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) also saw a significant cut at the RE stage. The allocation for PMGSY has been revised to Rs 11,000 crore in the RE from Rs 19,000 crore in the BE 2025-26.
For the next financial year (2026-27), the PMGSY’s allocation has been kept at Rs 19,000 crore. The allocation of the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) has also been revised downward to Rs 16,000 crore in the RE from Rs 19,005 crore in BE 2025-26. For the next financial year, the DAY-NRLM allocation has been kept at Rs 19,200 crore.
The budgetary allocation for the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), which includes the Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension and Widow Pension and Disability Pension schemes, has been set at Rs 9,671 crore for the next financial year, marginally up from the current year’s budget of Rs 9,652 crore. At the RE states, NSAP’s allocation has been revised downwards to 9197 crore.
