CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday termed the union government’s claim of providing 125 days of employment under the proposed VB-G RAM G scheme “deceptive promise” and accused AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami of supporting the move.

Stalin wrote that despite a legal guarantee of 100 days of work under MGNREGA, beneficiaries received only up to 25 days of work under the BJP regime. “Even for this, wages were released after months of delay. We had to struggle to secure those funds,” he said.

Referring to the VB-G RAM G scheme, Stalin said work allocation would now be left to the discretion of officials, as per the wishes of the union government. “Under such a system, getting work even for a few days will become difficult. Tamil Nadu will suffer huge financial loss,” he warned. He added that under the new scheme, state governments would have to bear 40% of the expenditure, which would further burden states already impacted by the GST regime.

Palaniswami, in a social media post on Wednesday, had welcomed aspects of the Bill to increase the 100-day employment scheme to 125 days, but urged the centre to retain the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme without any change to its name.