Bengal launches VBGRAM rural jobs scheme after 4.5 years
Times of India | 3 July 2026
Kolkata: The newly launched 125-workday Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (VBGRAM), the revamped version of the 100-workday MGNREGA scheme, was officially rolled out across several districts of Bengal on Thursday. The scheme permits 318 types of work split across four broad categories: water-related works, rural infrastructure, livelihood infrastructure, and extreme-weather mitigation.
The rural work scheme started in Bengal after a four-and-a-half-year hiatus.
In West Burdwan, the scheme was inaugurated at Phuljhore, a tribal-dominated village under Kanksa block’s Bidhbihar gram panchayat. Kanksa block development officer (BDO) Sourabh Gupta reported that villagers participated in pond excavation, with each worker receiving a daily wage of Rs 300 under the revised structure effective from July 1. Durgapur sub-divisional officer (SDO) Kaushik Chattopadhyay and VBGRAM district officer Atanu Mondal attended the launch to educate villagers on available employment opportunities.
The scheme brought relief to Howrah’s Uluberia-II Block, resuming rural work after a four-and-a-half-year hiatus. Launching the renovation of the vital Nyacha Khal canal at Konchouko village, panchayat minister Dilip Ghosh personally cleared waste with a spade. Beneficiaries Khairul Mallick, Golapi Bibi and Ashis Biswas expressed their relief: “We were in extreme financial distress and had to work as migrant labourers. Previously, we had to pay cut-money to Trinamool Congress middlemen just to secure 100-day work. The minister said no one has to share a cut anymore. We hope to get regular work and receive full wages now.”
The programme saw varied progress elsewhere. In Jalpaiguri, where there are 73.20 lakh active workers, 20 community drainage projects are currently underway. However, no work took place in Bankura on Thursday. While Onda MLA Amarnath Sakha stated that lists of the poor are being prepared to begin work soon, veteran CPM leader Amiya Patra criticised the move, claiming govt officers are bypassing TMC-run panchayats to prepare these lists. The CPM also questioned the state’s plan to release Rs 14,180 crore, calling it mathematically insufficient for Bengal’s 75.97 lakh active job cardholders.
Meanwhile, a labour strike disrupted the rollout in Nadia’s Haringhata block. Around 20 labourers cleaning the six-acre Padmapukur pond at Fatepur gram panchayat stopped work on Wednesday over poor wages. Workers Mangal Sarkar and Sumita Roy, who both received job scheme employment after a decade, stated they walked away because they expected to earn only Rs 300, much less than the Rs 400 to Rs 500 they command as agricultural labourers. They also complained of foul, skin-irritating water and encountering snakes. Haringhata BDO Krishanu Sen clarified that actual earth-cutting work—which yields the full revised Rs 300 wage for excavating 62 cubic feet of earth—had not yet started, and that the initial low payments reflected preliminary cleaning work.