The government is set to introduce a Bill in the ongoing Winter session of Parliament to rename the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as “Pujya Bapu Gramin Rozgar Yojana”. The Union Cabinet approved the amended Bill on Friday, December 12, 2025, though there was no official announcement during the cabinet briefing by Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. The original law, passed in 2005 as the "National Rural Employment Guarantee Act," added the prefix "Mahatma Gandhi" in 2009. This rural job scheme currently guarantees up to 100 days of wage employment annually for households willing to do unskilled manual work. The government plans to increase this limit to 125 days. According to Kamlesh Paswan, Minister of State for Rural Development, the average actual work provided over the last five years is about 50.35 days per household. He also called the scheme a "fallback option when no better employment opportunity is available." A panel led by former Rural Development Secretary Amarjeet Sinha reviewed the scheme last year, focusing on large differences across states. Poorer states like Bihar spend less on the scheme compared to richer states such as Tamil Nadu. The updated Bill will likely add exclusion rules based on a state's economic status. Funding changes may follow. Currently, the central government pays 100% of wages. The government might introduce stricter controls to avoid issues like those seen in West Bengal, where fund release stopped in March 2022 due to state non-compliance. After a Calcutta High Court order, the Centre resumed the scheme there on December 6, 2025, but with "mandatory compliance with special conditions."