A new rural employment promise is taking shape in Chhattisgarh — and it comes with a bigger wage, more working days, and a deadline that is already on the calendar. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai on Thursday, 6 August 2026 used a press briefing at Mahanadi Bhawan, Nava Raipur to formally introduce the Viksit Bharat-GRAMG (VB-GRAMG) scheme, framing it as the state's contribution to the national vision of a developed India.

What VB-GRAMG promises rural workers

The scheme, set to take effect from 1 July 2026, guarantees rural labourers 125 days of employment at a daily wage of ₹300. That is a notable step up from the 100-day, lower-wage floor that the central Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) — enacted in 2005 — has long provided. The Chhattisgarh government is positioning VB-GRAMG as a state-level amplification of that national framework, not a replacement.

The work itself spans 318 categories of activity, covering water conservation, rural infrastructure, livelihood development, and disaster management. The breadth of that list signals an intent to move beyond road-digging and into climate-resilient rural planning — a shift that mirrors the language coming out of the central government's rural development push.

The 'Meri Beti, Mera Abhimaan' toilet drive

Announced alongside the employment scheme is a girls' sanitation campaign titled 'Meri Beti, Mera Abhimaan' — 'My Daughter, My Pride'. Between 15 August and 26 January, the state plans to construct toilets for girl students in 6,671 schools across Chhattisgarh. The timeline — Independence Day to Republic Day — is a deliberate patriotic frame, and the target figure underscores the scale of the infrastructure gap the government says it is closing. The initiative echoes the decade-old Swachh Bharat Mission's school sanitation strand, now being driven with state-level urgency.

The 'double engine' political argument

CM Sai invoked Prime Minister Narendra Modi explicitly, attributing the scheme's direction to his guidance and repeating the BJP's signature 'double engine government' formulation — the idea that a BJP state and a BJP Centre pull in the same direction for faster development. The framing is as much political as it is administrative: Chhattisgarh, a state with a large rural and tribal population, is fertile ground for welfare-linked governance messaging ahead of future electoral cycles.

Whether the scheme's specifics — the wage figure, the day count, the school numbers — translate into ground-level delivery is the question that will define VB-GRAMG's legacy. The start date is set. The clock is running.