E-Paper
Jung returns AAP government’s file on revision of minimum wages
NEW DELHI: Lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung returned a file on revision of minimum wages to the Delhi government on Friday and asked it to reprocess the entire proposal.
NEW DELHI: Lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung returned a file on revision of minimum wages to the Delhi government on Friday and asked it to reprocess the entire proposal.
Labour minister Gopal Rai, who met Jung at Raj Niwas, said while the L-G did not oppose the proposal ‘in principle’, he returned the file terming the 13-member wages fixation committee ‘illegal’ as prior approval for it was not taken.
The labour department, however, sent the proposal to constitute the committee later in the day after Rai held an emergency meeting with the department officials.
As per the existing government’s proposal, the minimum wages for unskilled person will be Rs 14,052 against the existing Rs 9,568 in the national capital. Besides, the same for semiskilled and skilled persons will increase from Rs 10,582 to Rs 15,471 and from Rs 11,622 to Rs 17,033, respectively.
“I requested L-G to give ex-facto approval to the formation of the committee as he was not against their recommendation and the formula adopted to revise the minimum wages. But he declined and has asked the government reprocess it. The exercise will delay the revision of minimum wages for sure,” Rai said.
The Delhi Cabinet had cleared the proposal on August 18 and it was sent for approval to L-G on August 24. On Thursday, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal targeted the L-G for sitting on the file on directions of the BJP government at the Centre.
Attacking Jung for returning file on minimum wages on Friday, Kejriwal tweeted, “On a day when 18 crore workers are on strike, Modi’s LG returns file on minimum wages. (sic).”
