Hyderabad, Dec. 24 -- There has been a din, and even justified, about the replacement of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). It is being faulted on several reasons, including the structure of the programme under the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-G Ram G) law, which claims jobs would be ensured for the rural poor, and the removal of Mahatma Gandhi's name from the law.

The irony now is that the country has forgotten how the very concept of jobs-on-demand had evolved, which, several decades later, was adopted into MNREGA. The very genesis lies with VS Page (pronounced "pagey"), an MLA from Maharashtra's Sangli district in the 1970s. He was later the chairman of the legi...