Assam has finished under 10% of rural jobs-scheme works since 2023-24

Assam has completed fewer than one in ten of the rural works it has started since 2023-24 under the rural employment scheme earlier known as MGNREGS and now renamed VB-G RAM G, according to figures reported by The Sentinel on Monday.

The newspaper said that, as of the second week of October 2026, 4,28,367 works had been taken up in the state over the four years, and only 40,598 of them had been finished. That puts the overall completion rate at 9.48 per cent.

Year by year

The figures show the completion rate stayed low every year:

• 2023-24: 28,491 works started, 1,501 completed (5.27 per cent)
• 2024-25: 47,460 started, 4,763 completed (10.04 per cent)
• 2025-26: 1,74,100 started, 26,664 completed (15.32 per cent)
• 2026-27 (to mid-October): 1,78,316 started, 7,670 completed (4.3 per cent)

The number of works taken up has jumped sharply in the last two years, but completions have not kept pace. The current year's figure covers only about six and a half months, and many works started this year may still be finished before March.

Why it matters

Works under the scheme are meant to create durable rural assets, such as ponds, rural roads, plantations and flood-protection works, while giving wage employment to households that hold job cards. Unfinished works mean money and labour spent without a usable asset at the end.

Assam has 34.6 lakh active job cards under the scheme, covering 47.89 lakh active workers, the report said. Works are carried out by gaon panchayats and monitored by the state Panchayat and Rural Development Department.

Who is responsible now

The department was headed by Ranjeet Kumar Dass in the previous state government. It is now held by Atul Bora of the Asom Gana Parishad, and the report said the task of turning around the scheme's performance now falls to him.

Neither the minister nor the department has publicly responded to the figures.

The scheme's new name

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, launched in 2006, was recast by the Centre as VB-G RAM G (Viksit Bharat - Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin)). The works counted in these figures go back to 2023-24, before the change of name.