Senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan said on Sunday that the Central government has ‘practically abolished’ the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act by replacing it with the Developed India Guaranteed Employment and Livelihood Mission (VB Ji Ram Ji) Bill.
Senior lawyer told ‘PTI-Bhasha’ in Latur that not only the name has been changed but the entire scheme has been changed.
The Ji Ram Ji Bill was passed in the recently concluded winter session of Parliament amid strong opposition from the opposition.
The opposition had expressed strong opposition to the removal of Mahatma Gandhi’s name and the financial burden on the states.
Bhushan said, “MNREGA was a rights-based scheme, under which every rural family had the fundamental right to work for at least 100 days at minimum wages and received funds from the government. But now the central government has abolished it. The government says now it will be budget-based.”
“Now the government (Centre) says they will decide what percentage they will give and how much the state government will give. Thus, they have effectively ended the scheme,” he said.
The senior advocate stressed that earlier too the government had imposed various restrictions on it.
“Like West Bengal, they (central government) did not provide funds for MNREGA for many years. Therefore, they wanted to end it, and now legally, they have ended the scheme,” the senior advocate claimed.
Bhushan also expressed concern over the sedition provision of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP) and the Indian Judicial Code, saying “a lot of restrictions are being imposed” through such steps.
He said, “And anyway, we are seeing that people who speak against the government are being framed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) or the like. They (the central government) are trying their best to end the freedom of expression but so far they have not been completely successful.”