New Delhi, June 30 -- With barely 48 hours before India's new rural employment scheme is set to replace MGNREGS, official data presented at the Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Sammelan shows that 14 of 34 states and Union Territories are yet to formally notify the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin), five have not identified peak agricultural seasons as legally required, and several large states including Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are yet to open mandatory Reserve Bank of India (RBI) accounts - raising questions about whether July 1 will mark a genuine national launch or the beginning of a protracted roll-out. A preparedness audit - presented at the Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Sammelan, a national conclave of rural development officials convened by the Ministry of Rural Development ahead of the July 1 launch - reveals significant administrative gaps across states even as the Centre has released an interim allocation of Rs.95,692.31 crore and declared its own systems fully operational. Of 34 states and UTs, 14 remain at "under process" stage, including politically and demographically significant states: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Haryana, and Uttarakhand. Senior officials from three of the largest recipient states - all yet to formally notify the scheme - told HT on the sidelines of the conclave that they expected to complete the process before Wednesday's launch. A senior West Bengal rural development official said "the state was trying to notify VB-G RAM G by Tuesday evening". Tamil Nadu officials said "notification was similarly expected by Tuesday evening". In Madhya Pradesh, which has been allocated Rs.6,252.03 crore under the scheme, officials confirmed the notification proposal had been placed on the agenda of Tuesday's Cabinet meeting. West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have been allocated Rs.8,508 crore and Rs.7,585.49 crore respectively under the interim fund distribution. To be sure, these states have made budgetary provision for the scheme; most states will bear 40% of the overall expenditure. Jharkhand is the only state that has not made budgetary provision for VB-G RAM G - a basic administrative prerequisite marked as "No" in official data. Gujarat has not created a budget head and has not opened the mandatory RBI account. Gujarat officials said: "The notification process is under way and the state expects to issue it before Wednesday's launch." Several other states including Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Meghalaya remain at advance stage on RBI account opening - a critical gap since fund flows under the new scheme is routed through these accounts. Among the more consequential unresolved items is the non-identification of peak agricultural seasons by five jurisdictions - Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar, and Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu. Under VB-G RAM G, states must formally notify these periods, during which work under the scheme cannot be demanded. Failure to do so before launch creates a legal ambiguity around worker rights from day one. Economists and rural development experts have flagged the peak season notification gap as more than an administrative oversight. Economist Jean Dreze, one of the original architects of MGNREGA, described the mandatory 60-day blackout period as "an unnecessary complication as well as a dilution of the right to work", noting that very few rural labourers work on MGNREGA during peak agricultural seasons anyway since they can earn higher wages in the private sector at that time. He has also pointed out that "some MGNREGA works take place during the peak agricultural season for good reasons - in Jharkhand, for instance, plantation of mango saplings in MGNREGA orchards takes place in July, when ploughing and sowing are in full swing. The failure of five jurisdictions to identify and notify peak seasons before the July 1 launch means that the legal framework governing when workers can and cannot demand work remains undefined in those areas from day one". The Centre, for its part has declared it is completely ready for the roll-out....