Panel suggests min wages under job scheme

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has asked the government to ensure that over one crore workers enrolled under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) should get wages as per minimum wages applicable in different states.

Updated on: Nov 1, 2010, 02:59:31 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has asked the government to ensure that over one crore workers enrolled under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) should get wages as per minimum wages applicable in different states.

As of now, those enrolled in the world’s biggest job guarantee scheme in 19 states get wages less than what has been prescribed under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. In some states, minimum wages is as high as R200 per day.

The rural development ministry, which administers the scheme, prescribed R100 per day as wage for workers under NREGA but is not willing to pay as per the minimum wages, which vary in states.

The states governments are also not willing to pay minimum wages saying as per the MGNREGA the Centre has to pay for the wages. The Centre has refused to pay more than R 100 per person per day citing financial constraints.

However, Andhra Pradesh high court in 2009 struck down the Centre’s order saying it violated the minimum wages law. The NAC recommendation now allow the government to correct the legal discrepancy.

“I have not seen the NAC recommendations,” said BK Sinha, secretary Rural Development, when asked about his views. “It is a policy decision which will have to be examined in consultation with the minister.”

Government sources said the earlier efforts of rural development minister CP Joshi to link MGNREGA wages with minimum wages was not accepted by the financial ministry. In a bid to resolve the issues, the NAC has also decided to organise inter-ministerial meetings

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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