PATNA, Dec. 18 -- The Bihar government will have to spend estimated Rs.3,000 crore to Rs.3,500 crore from next fiscal year onwards as state share under the proposed new rural employment scheme -- Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rojgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramim) or VB-G RAM G -- which is set to replace the existing Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The reason for the outlay is attributed to the new fund sharing provisions under proposed new rural employment scheme for unskilled workers of rural households. In the new fund sharing provisions of VB-G RAM G, the state government would have to bear the cost of wages, material in the 60:40 ratio as against the present system under MGNREGS where the wage bills is totally borne by the Centre while 75 percent of share on material is provided by the Centre and the rest by the state government for number of mandays generated in a fiscal year. "There would be a hike in the expenditure once the new rural employment scheme format comes into implementation as the central and state share would be in 60:40 ratio. That could be putting an additional load of Rs.2,500 to Rs.3,000 crore as per estimation varying on the number of mandays generated and work given to job card holders," said a rural development department (RDD) official, in the know of the matter. As per the data in 2024-25, Rs.8,473 crore was spent under MGNREGS in Bihar of which the Centre gave Rs.7,610 as its share while the state had to spend only Rs.863 crore by way of its share in material costs. In 2023-24, the expenditure under MGNREGS in Bihar stood at Rs.7,896 crore of which the central share stood at Rs.6,827 crore while the state share was Rs.1,069 crore . Officials said in 2025-26 (current fiscal year), there is an estimation so far that the expenditure under MGNREGS is Rs.5,798 crore of which the central share would be Rs.5,246 crore while the state share would be Rs.551 crore. But if one takes into account the proposed new system of 60:40 ratio, the central share under the proposed VB-G RAM G would be Rs.3,478 crore while the state share would be Rs.2,319 crore as against the expenditure of Rs.5,798 crore so far. More importantly, officials in RDD maintained that the states would have less flexibility in fixing the annual mandays target as the Centre under VB-G RAM G would make normative allocation for each state, meaning thereby the number of mandays to be generated could be fixed based on various parameters of poverty and other social indices in each district. In case, any state decides to increase the target of mandays for any fiscal year beyond the normative allocation, the state government will bear any expenditure incurred in excess of this allocation. "In the context of Bihar, any increase in the target of mandays for any fiscal year as against the allocation fixed from the Centre would mean additional costs because the entire expenditure of wages, material for excess days of work would have to be borne by the state government. That may be an area of concern for us," said another RDD official. In 2024-26, Bihar had generated around 23 crore mandays by getting its target for job creation under MGNREGS revised in wake of higher demand for work from the job card holders. In the ongoing fiscal year, the state government has generated around 16.5 crore mandays so far as against the target of around 21 crore mandays. Data says, there is 99 lakh active job card holders out of a total 1.86 crore job card holders. Under MGNREGS, 100 days of work is guaranteed to unskilled workers of rural households on demand while under the new rural employment scheme,the guarantee is for 125 days. Significantly, RDD officials maintained the modalities for implementing the new format of rural employment scheme would be finalised in coming months, once the VB-G RAM G bill gets enacted after approval from Parliament. The bill was tabled in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. "There has to be convergence of various schemes through departments engaged in asset creation like building school buildings, panchayat bhawans , agricultural infrastructure.. etc so that the additional costs to be put on the state government can be managed. Otherwise, there would be heavy load on the state exchequer due to the 60:40 ratio. The costs would rise by three to four times as against the present state share under MGNREGS,' said a MGNREGA official, seeking anonymity. He said the state government would wait for the new law to come into force following which the financial aspects of the proposed scheme would be assessed in detail. " There is still some time before the proposed new scheme comes into force. So, right now, we are only going by the old system of MGNREGS. Focus is on achieving the yearly target of 21 crore mandays by giving more work to job card holders in next three months," he added....