Govt decides to raise job plan wages by 25%

The government on Thursday decided to increase wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme by around 25% from January 1.

Updated on: Jan 7, 2011, 24:23:12 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government on Thursday decided to increase wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme by around 25% from January 1.

However, as the new wages are still lesser than minimum wages in some states the government decision may be challenged in court as paying wages less than minimum wages is an offence under the Minimum Wages Act. "The possibility cannot be ruled out," an official said.

However, rural development minister CP Joshi said, "The MGNREGA law does not say anywhere that wages have to be at par with minimum wages."

Announcing the decision, Joshi said the National Advisory Council recommendations were considered and the government decided the best way for automatic increase was linking it with annual inflation rate.

A committee headed by plan panel's senior principal advisor Pranob Sen had recommended a 25% increase in wages. It had also examined increase in inflation state-wise. The rural development ministry has thus come out with different wages for different states.

"Each year as per the indexing the wages will be enhanced. Every five years the base of R100 will be revised based on the Sen panel recommendations…" he said.

MGNREGA wages were not linked with minimum wages when the law was drafted by Sonia Gandhi-headed NAC in its first avatar as wages under minimum wages Act in certain states were very low.

Sonia Gandhi had suggested in the NAC's second avatar that MNREGA wages be linked with minimum wages. This was rejected by the rural development ministry and the planning commission. "We don't have any problem… if the states are willing to bear the additional tab," a plan panel official said.

Thursday's decision will add an annual financial burden of over R12,000 crore from the present budget allocation of about Rs 40,000 crore.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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