ETM_2011_4_5_15
1
ometime this month, Justice N Ramamohana Rao of the Andhra Pradesh High Court will deliver a verdict that will directly impact earnings of the 114 million people who work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) — the Central govern- ment’s work guarantee programme. The verdict will also indirectly im- pact earnings of the 400 million workers and labourers who toil in India’s factories and fields for ‘mini- mum wages’. The question Justice Rao will try to answer is this: can the Centre fix NREGS wages in isolation, or should it set it at the minimum wage rate prevailing in each state? The first op- tion confers power on the Centre and allows it to pay less than the mini- mum figure set by a state for its workers. In doing so, it goes against the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 — the law that sets the baseline for worker earnings. The second option makes it toe that law. The five-year experience of NREGs, and what it has done to worker empowerment and mini- mum wages in India, shows that this is a complex question. Interwoven into it are livelihood issues, worker rights, Centre-state relations and politics. STATES SPOT AN OPPORTUNITY The NREGs is one of the largest state interventions in India’s labour market. In 2009-10, NREGS put Rs 39,100 crore in the hands of 52 mil- lion households in 619 districts, ac- cording to the Ministry of Rural Development, which oversees the programme. Sure, some of this mon- ey never reached these households, but let’s leave that aside for now. When it started, in 2005, the Centre set the NREGS rate at Rs 60 per day or the minimum wage rate set by a state, whichever was higher. So, if the minimum wage rate of a state was below Rs 60, the Centre paid Rs 60. If it was above Rs 60, it paid the higher rate. Back in 2005-06, according to data available from the ministry, the min- imum wage rate in six out of 25 states was less than Rs 60. Gujarat, one of the most economically pro- gressive states, was the lowest: Rs 50. The minimum rate in another 10 states was between Rs 60 and Rs 70. The remaining nine were above Rs 70, led by Kerala with Rs 125. The arrival of the NREGS started pushing up minimum wages. “State governments began realising that the NREGS, which puts cash directly in the hands of the poor, was a great way to build political capital,” says a joint secretary in the ministry of ru- ral development, not wanting to be identified. “Better still, the Centre paid for it.” In the initial months, the joint secretary says, states took one of two approaches. The first approach was to increase minimum wages. Like Uttar Pradesh, which then had a mini- mum wage rate of Rs 58. Under Mulayam Singh Yadav, who presided over the state from 2003 to 2007, UP had not revised minimum wages for five years. After Mayawati took over in 2007, she increased it to Rs 100. “Yadav’s support base are the landed elite, Mayawati’s are the landless,” explains the joint secretary. The second approach, followed by Gujarat among others, was to leave the minimum wage rate untouched. Instead, for NREGS alone, Gujarat diluted its schedule of rates (SOR), which define the amount of work a worker needs to do for a full day’s wage. Effectively, an NREGS worker received more money for the same amount of work. The idea was to not draw the ire of industry and large farmers, while passing on the bene- fits to NREGS workers. Between 2006 and mid-2007, SORs were liberalised heavily. THE CENTRE RESPONDS Thus began a game of cat and mouse between the Centre and the states. The Centre cracked down on SOR re- visions. In response, states began to raise minimum wages, first to ap- pease their people by using the Centre’s money, then to score over adjoining states. After UP increased minimum wages, Rajasthan found its labour migrating to UP. So, it also increased its minimum wage rate from Rs 73 to Rs 100. Bihar and MP followed. “States were raising minimum wages not based on inflation or local economic trends, but in competition with each other,” says the joint secre- tary. The impact of NREGS was deep and wide. While workers began de- manding — and of- ten received — more wages, industry and large farmers saw their wage bill shoot up. “It’s getting harder to find labour at a reasonable price,” says S Sundaresan, a large farmer in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu: “At this rate, after two years, no pad- dy will be grown here.” Kaustav Bannerjee, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, says NREGS has reduced mi- gration. In a paper titled ‘Rights in Theory and Practice: A Case Study of the NREGA’, Bannerjee, who studied NREGA implementation for his PhD, wrote: “In 2006, around 421,000 mi- grant workers came from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar alone to work in Punjab. In 2008, the figure could have reduced to 250,000.” At the same time, with little atten- tion on implementation, NREGS projects were not meeting deliver- ables. For instance, according to the ministry of rural development, just 8.2% of NREGS projects were com- pleted in 2007-08 and 12.1% in 2008-09. Says the joint secretary: “The NREGS was becoming a dole pro- gramme creating poor assets instead of a rural safety net that also built good assets.” In 2008, the Centre decided NREGS wages would no longer be automati- cally revised every time a state upped its minimum wage. Instead, the Centre would approve it on a case-to-case basis. In 2009, when India went for general elections, the Congress promised “at least 100 days of work at a real wage of Rs 100 a day for everyone as an entitlement under the NREGA”. When it returned to power, the UPA delivered on this promise: Rs 100 be- came the new NREGS minimum, against Rs 60 earlier. But it remained linked to the Minimum Wages Act. So, in states where the minimum wage rate was higher than Rs 100, the Centre was till paying the higher rate to NREGS workers. RIGHTS AND WRONGS This changed in January 2009. A ministry of rural development noti- fication delinked NREGS wages from the Minimum Wages Act. It set the NREGS wage rate at Rs 100 or the state’s minimum wage rate then, whichever was higher. Further, that rate would be increased for inflation every year. If a state whose mini- mum wage rate was higher wanted to pay more, it could do so, but the Centre would contribute only Rs 100; the balance would have to be met by the state. The Centre, worried by the tenden- cy of states to increase minimum wages, was effectively capping its NREGS obligation. “States were re- alising the potential of NREGS, and there was a possibility that this might start spinning out of control,” says another senior bureaucrat in the ministry of rural development, not wanting to be identified. “What if a state increased its minimum wages to Rs 300? Will the centre have to pay?” The Centre’s delinking of NREGA wages from the Minimum Wages Act has become an issue in states whose minimum wages are above Rs 100. NREGA workers in those states are effectively being paid below mini- mum wages. In Andhra Pradesh, Ajay Kumar of Vyavasaya Vruthidarula Union and four other workers of Visakhapatnam district, where the minimum wage is Rs 119, have filed a case against the Centre in the Andhra Pradesh High Court. Lawyer Prashant Bhushan is repre- senting them and a verdict in the case is expected later this month. “We are arguing that the Centre has to pay the state minimum wage,” says Reddy Subramanyam, rural de- velopment secretary of Andhra Pradesh. Activists say the issue goes beyond the squabble between the Centre and the states on who should pay. Nikhil Dey, an activist with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), says the delinking weakens both the NREGA and the Minimum Wages Act. “NREGA is supported by two rights. It directly confers upon all citizens the right to at least 100 days of work. And, because of its link to the Minimum Wages Act, it confers the right to get a mini- mum wage,” he says. “The delink- ing reduces the NREGA wage from a right to an amount set by the gov- ernment.” Aruna Roy, NAC member and one of the founders of the MKSS, says it’s a question of worker rights. “A right is being taken away and being replaced with a higher wage,” she says. “But what if they take that wage away later? A right is funda- mental. We cannot lose that right.” CORRECTIONS OR DISTORTIONS? The senior bureaucrat in the min- istry of rural development says NREGA, by its very nature, is not the benchmark for minimum wages. “NREGS is supposed to be the em- ployer of last resort, a safety net. Only when people do not find work anywhere else should they come to NREGA. For that reason, it cannot be the minimum wage,” he says. “What that will otherwise do is com- pete with business and others for labour, and take people away from productive employment.” This is also the position taken by the finance ministry while drawing up NREGA. Ian MacAuslan writes in a paper on the drafting of the Act: “The ministry of finance argued that the state minimums are de- signed to support market wages, but the NREGA provides employment of last resort. Its wage rates should, therefore, be designed to meet target- ing objectives. The NREGA wage is a different issue from state mini- mums.” However, the experience of the past five years shows that in linking itself to the minimum wage rate, the NREGS wage rate did more for work- er earnings than all state diktats put together. “Minimum wages began to be enforced only after NREGS was pegged to it,” says Dey. “I fear delink- ing will again reduce the Minimum Wage Act to a well-meaning, but poorly-enforced, law.” In areas where labour is in abun- dance, or power dynamics are skewed, wages can fall to ridiculous depths. Says B Rajshekhar, who heads Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), Andhra Pradesh: “For the longest time, wages in the state’s coastal districts ranged from Rs 60-70 and Rs 30-40 in the interiors. Women got even less than that.” NREGA, linked with the Minimum Wages Act, has shown the ability to bring about market correc- tions. “Only in the last two years have wages increased,” adds Rajshekhar. While there have been much-needed corrections in parts of the country, there are still large swathes of industry and agriculture where labourers are still paid less than the prescribed mini- mum wage. “Minimum wages are hardly ever paid,” says Subramanyam of the Andhra gov- ernment. “Even the process of deter- mining minimum wages is not in place. It’s just a paper exercise at the best of times.” A workshop in New Delhi in January organised by the MKSS and the Bandhua Mukti Morcha, which works against bonded labour, high- lighted the flaws in the minimum wage policy. There were bonded labourers who were being paid less than Rs 400 a month. Speaking at the workshop, retired Delhi Chief Justice AP Shah, who delivered the landmark verdict on Section 377 le- galising same sex relationships, said: “Minimum wage is defined as the bare minimum a person needs to survive...the Centre cannot take a stand that it will pay less than the minimum wage.” The senior bureaucrat says the gap between the two wages is a short- term problem, which will be re- solved in the next round of NREGS wage revision in January 2012. At present, there are eight states where NREGS wages are lower than its minimum wage (See table). “They will see their NREGS wage rate move closer to their minimum wage rate. In states where NREGS wages are higher, states will increase mini- mum wages to bring them in line with the NREGS wage,” he says. “There will be convergence and the NREGS wage rate will become the new de facto minimum wage.” In effect, the Centre will decide what the minimum wage for a state should be. And that’s another reason why this might not be desirable. NREGS pushed up minimum wages. State governments realised that the NREGS, was a great way to build political capital NREGA workers in 7 states are being paid below base wages. In AP, five workers have filed a case against the Centre in the high court Dilbert by S Adams The Crossword 4919 Special Feature WWW.ECONOMICTIMES.COM 15 Minimum Wages A Question of Rights S DEEP ROOTED: In areas where labour is in abundance or power dynamics are skewed, wages can fall to ridiculous depths. An NREGA-minimum wages link was able to correct that. From Convergence to Divergence When it was linked to each state’s minimum wage rate, NREGA set the floor for labour earnings and lifted wages. Now that it is delinked, NREGA wages are lower than minimum wages in seven states. SOURCE: MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT MIN. AGRICULTURAL WAGE RATE NREGA WAGE RATE 2006-07 2009-10 States are arranged in their respective sets in increasing order of 2006-07 wages NREGA Above Minimum Wages Maharashtra 47 127 Gujarat 50 124 Orissa 55 125 Arunachal Pradesh 55-57 118 Uttar Pradesh 58 120 Tripura 60 118 Chhattisgarh 63 122 Madhya Pradesh 63 122 Assam 66 130 Nagaland 66 118 Bihar 68 120 West Bengal 69 130 Jammu & Kashmir 70 121 Meghalaya 70 117 Manipur 72 126 Uttranchal 73 120 Himachal Pradesh 75 120-150 Jharkhand 77 120 Tamil Nadu 80 119 Sikkim 85 118 Haryana 99 179 NREGA Below Minimum Wages Karnataka 69 125 Rajasthan 73 119 Andhra Pradesh 80 121 Mizoram 91 129 Punjab 93-105 124-130 Kerala 125 150 Goa NA 138 110-120 100 90 80 100 100 122 110 87 80 109 96 110 100 81 114 110 111 85-100 100 167 134 135 125 132 143 200 157 “Minimum wages began to be enforced only after NREGS was pegged to it. I fear delinking will again reduce the Minimum Wage Act to a well-meaning, but poorly-enforced, law.” “The Centre is arguing that if a state’s minimum wage is higher than the NREGS wage rate, the state should pay. We are arguing the Centre has to pay the state’s minimum wage rate.” NIKHIL DEY Activist, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan REDDY SUBRAMANYAM Rural Development Secretary, Andhra Pradesh By linking itself to the ‘minimum wage’ rate, the NREGS wage rate did more for worker earnings than all state diktats put together. Now that the two are delinked, both states and civil society are up in arms, for their own reasons, reports M Rajshekhar
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Transcript of ETM_2011_4_5_15
ometime this month, Justice NRamamohana Rao of theAndhra Pradesh High Courtwill deliver a verdict that willdirectly impact earnings of the114 million people who workunder the National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme(NREGS) — the Central govern-ment’s work guarantee programme.The verdict will also indirectly im-pact earnings of the 400 millionworkers and labourers who toil inIndia’s factories and fields for ‘mini-mum wages’.
The question Justice Rao will try toanswer is this: can the Centre fixNREGS wages in isolation, or shouldit set it at the minimum wage rateprevailing in each state? The first op-tion confers power on the Centre andallows it to pay less than the mini-mum figure set by a state for itsworkers. In doing so, it goes againstthe Minimum Wages Act, 1948 — thelaw that sets the baseline for workerearnings. The second option makesit toe that law.
The five-year experience ofNREGs, and what it has done toworker empowerment and mini-mum wages in India, shows that thisis a complex question. Interwoveninto it are livelihood issues, workerrights, Centre-state relations andpolitics.
STATES SPOT AN OPPORTUNITY
The NREGs is one of the largeststate interventions in India’s labourmarket. In 2009-10, NREGS put Rs39,100 crore in the hands of 52 mil-lion households in 619 districts, ac-cording to the Ministry of RuralDevelopment, which oversees theprogramme. Sure, some of this mon-ey never reached these households,but let’s leave that aside for now.
When it started, in 2005, the Centreset the NREGS rate at Rs 60 per dayor the minimum wage rate set by astate, whichever was higher. So, ifthe minimum wage rate of a statewas below Rs 60, the Centre paid Rs60. If it was above Rs 60, it paid thehigher rate.
Back in 2005-06, according to dataavailable from the ministry, the min-imum wage rate in six out of 25states was less than Rs 60. Gujarat,one of the most economically pro-gressive states, was the lowest: Rs 50.The minimum rate in another 10states was between Rs 60 and Rs 70.The remaining nine were above Rs70, led by Kerala with Rs 125.
The arrival of the NREGS startedpushing up minimum wages. “Stategovernments began realising thatthe NREGS, which puts cash directlyin the hands of the poor, was a greatway to build political capital,” says ajoint secretary in the ministry of ru-ral development, not wanting to beidentified. “Better still, the Centrepaid for it.” In the initial months, thejoint secretary says, states took one
of two approaches. The first approach was to increase
minimum wages. Like UttarPradesh, which then had a mini-mum wage rate of Rs 58. UnderMulayam Singh Yadav, who presidedover the state from 2003 to 2007, UPhad not revised minimum wages forfive years. After Mayawati took overin 2007, she increased it to Rs 100.“Yadav’s support base are the landedelite, Mayawati’s are the landless,”explains the joint secretary.
The second approach, followed byGujarat among others, was to leavethe minimum wage rate untouched.Instead, for NREGS alone, Gujaratdiluted its schedule of rates (SOR),which define the amount of work aworker needs to do for a full day’swage. Effectively, an NREGS workerreceived more money for the sameamount of work. The idea was to notdraw the ire of industry and largefarmers, while passing on the bene-fits to NREGS workers. Between 2006and mid-2007, SORs were liberalisedheavily.
THE CENTRE RESPONDS
Thus began a game of cat and mousebetween the Centre and the states.The Centre cracked down on SOR re-visions. In response, states began toraise minimum wages, first to ap-pease their people by using theCentre’s money, then to score overadjoining states.
After UP increased minimumwages, Rajasthan found its labourmigrating to UP. So, it also increasedits minimum wage rate from Rs 73 toRs 100. Bihar and MP followed.“States were raising minimum
wages not based oninflation or localeconomic trends,but in competitionwith each other,”says the joint secre-tary.
The impact ofNREGS was deepand wide. Whileworkers began de-manding — and of-ten received — morewages, industry and
large farmers saw their wage billshoot up. “It’s getting harder to findlabour at a reasonable price,” says SSundaresan, a large farmer inThanjavur district of Tamil Nadu:“At this rate, after two years, no pad-dy will be grown here.”
Kaustav Bannerjee, a professor atJawaharlal Nehru University in NewDelhi, says NREGS has reduced mi-gration. In a paper titled ‘Rights inTheory and Practice: A Case Study ofthe NREGA’, Bannerjee, who studiedNREGA implementation for his PhD,wrote: “In 2006, around 421,000 mi-grant workers came from UttarPradesh and Bihar alone to work inPunjab. In 2008, the figure could havereduced to 250,000.”
At the same time, with little atten-tion on implementation, NREGSprojects were not meeting deliver-ables. For instance, according to theministry of rural development, just8.2% of NREGS projects were com-pleted in 2007-08 and 12.1% in 2008-09.Says the joint secretary: “TheNREGS was becoming a dole pro-gramme creating poor assets insteadof a rural safety net that also builtgood assets.”
In 2008, the Centre decided NREGSwages would no longer be automati-cally revised every time a stateupped its minimum wage. Instead,the Centre would approve it on acase-to-case basis. In 2009, whenIndia went for general elections, theCongress promised “at least 100 daysof work at a real wage of Rs 100 a dayfor everyone as an entitlement underthe NREGA”.
When it returned to power, the UPAdelivered on this promise: Rs 100 be-came the new NREGS minimum,against Rs 60 earlier. But it remainedlinked to the Minimum Wages Act.So, in states where the minimumwage rate was higher than Rs 100,the Centre was till paying the higherrate to NREGS workers.
RIGHTS AND WRONGS
This changed in January 2009. Aministry of rural development noti-fication delinked NREGS wagesfrom the Minimum Wages Act. It setthe NREGS wage rate at Rs 100 or thestate’s minimum wage rate then,whichever was higher. Further, thatrate would be increased for inflationevery year. If a state whose mini-mum wage rate was higher wantedto pay more, it could do so, but theCentre would contribute only Rs 100;the balance would have to be met bythe state.
The Centre, worried by the tenden-cy of states to increase minimumwages, was effectively capping itsNREGS obligation. “States were re-alising the potential of NREGS, andthere was a possibility that thismight start spinning out of control,”says another senior bureaucrat inthe ministry of rural development,not wanting to be identified. “What ifa state increased its minimum wagesto Rs 300? Will the centre have topay?”
The Centre’s delinking of NREGAwages from the Minimum Wages Acthas become an issue in states whoseminimum wages are above Rs 100.NREGA workers in those states areeffectively being paid below mini-mum wages. In Andhra Pradesh,Ajay Kumar of VyavasayaVruthidarula Union and four otherworkers of Visakhapatnam district,where the minimum wage is Rs 119,have filed a case against the Centrein the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
Lawyer Prashant Bhushan is repre-senting them and a verdict in thecase is expected later this month.
“We are arguing that the Centre hasto pay the state minimum wage,”says Reddy Subramanyam, rural de-velopment secretary of AndhraPradesh.
Activists say the issue goes beyondthe squabble between the Centreand the states on who should pay.Nikhil Dey, an activist with theMazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan(MKSS), says the delinking weakensboth the NREGA and the MinimumWages Act. “NREGA is supportedby two rights. It directly confersupon all citizens the right to at least100 days of work. And, because ofits link to the Minimum Wages Act,it confers the right to get a mini-mum wage,” he says. “The delink-ing reduces the NREGA wage froma right to an amount set by the gov-ernment.”
Aruna Roy, NAC member and oneof the founders of the MKSS, saysit’s a question of worker rights. “Aright is being taken away and beingreplaced with a higher wage,” shesays. “But what if they take thatwage away later? A right is funda-mental. We cannot lose that right.”
CORRECTIONS OR DISTORTIONS?
The senior bureaucrat in the min-istry of rural development saysNREGA, by its very nature, is not thebenchmark for minimum wages.“NREGS is supposed to be the em-ployer of last resort, a safety net.Only when people do not find workanywhere else should they come toNREGA. For that reason, it cannotbe the minimum wage,” he says.“What that will otherwise do is com-pete with business and others forlabour, and take people away fromproductive employment.”
This is also the position taken bythe finance ministry while drawingup NREGA. Ian MacAuslan writes ina paper on the drafting of the Act:“The ministry of finance arguedthat the state minimums are de-signed to support market wages, butthe NREGA provides employment oflast resort. Its wage rates should,therefore, be designed to meet target-ing objectives. The NREGA wage is adifferent issue from state mini-mums.”
However, the experience of the pastfive years shows that in linking itselfto the minimum wage rate, theNREGS wage rate did more for work-er earnings than all state diktats puttogether. “Minimum wages began tobe enforced only after NREGS waspegged to it,” says Dey. “I fear delink-ing will again reduce the MinimumWage Act to a well-meaning, butpoorly-enforced, law.”
In areas where labour is in abun-dance, or power dynamics areskewed, wages can fall to ridiculousdepths. Says B Rajshekhar, whoheads Society for Elimination ofRural Poverty (SERP), AndhraPradesh: “For the longest time,
wages in the state’s coastal districtsranged from Rs 60-70 and Rs 30-40 inthe interiors. Women got even lessthan that.” NREGA, linked with theMinimum Wages Act, has shown theability to bring about market correc-tions. “Only in the last two yearshave wages increased,” adds
Rajshekhar.While there have
been much-neededcorrections in partsof the country, thereare still largeswathes of industryand agriculturewhere labourers arestill paid less thanthe prescribed mini-mum wage.“Minimum wagesare hardly everpaid,” says
Subramanyam of the Andhra gov-ernment. “Even the process of deter-mining minimum wages is not inplace. It’s just a paper exercise at thebest of times.”
A workshop in New Delhi inJanuary organised by the MKSS andthe Bandhua Mukti Morcha, whichworks against bonded labour, high-lighted the flaws in the minimum
wage policy. There were bondedlabourers who were being paid lessthan Rs 400 a month. Speaking at theworkshop, retired Delhi ChiefJustice AP Shah, who delivered thelandmark verdict on Section 377 le-galising same sex relationships,said: “Minimum wage is defined asthe bare minimum a person needs tosurvive...the Centre cannot take astand that it will pay less than theminimum wage.”
The senior bureaucrat says the gapbetween the two wages is a short-term problem, which will be re-solved in the next round of NREGSwage revision in January 2012. Atpresent, there are eight states whereNREGS wages are lower than itsminimum wage (See table). “Theywill see their NREGS wage ratemove closer to their minimum wagerate. In states where NREGS wagesare higher, states will increase mini-mum wages to bring them in linewith the NREGS wage,” he says.“There will be convergence and theNREGS wage rate will become thenew de facto minimum wage.”
In effect, the Centre will decidewhat the minimum wage for a stateshould be. And that’s another reasonwhy this might not be desirable.
NREGS
pushed up
minimum
wages. State
governments
realised that
the NREGS,
was a great
way to build
political
capital
NREGA
workers in 7
states are
being paid
below base
wages. In AP,
five workers
have filed a
case against
the Centre in
the high
court
Dilbert by S Adams
The Crossword 4919
Special Feature WWW.ECONOMICTIMES.COM 15Minimum Wages
A Question of Rights
SDEEP ROOTED: In areas where labour is in abundance or power dynamics are skewed, wages can fall to ridiculous depths. An NREGA-minimum wages link was able to correct that.
From Convergence to Divergence When it was linked to each state’s minimum wage rate, NREGA set
the floor for labour earnings and lifted wages. Now that it is delinked,
NREGA wages are lower than minimum wages in seven states.
SOURCE: MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT
MIN. AGRICULTURAL
WAGE RATE
NREGA WAGE RATE
2006-07 2009-10
States are arranged in their respective sets in increasing order of 2006-07 wages
NREGA Above Minimum Wages
Maharashtra 47 127
Gujarat 50 124
Orissa 55 125
Arunachal Pradesh 55-57 118
Uttar Pradesh 58 120
Tripura 60 118
Chhattisgarh 63 122
Madhya Pradesh 63 122
Assam 66 130
Nagaland 66 118
Bihar 68 120
West Bengal 69 130
Jammu & Kashmir 70 121
Meghalaya 70 117
Manipur 72 126
Uttranchal 73 120
Himachal Pradesh 75 120-150
Jharkhand 77 120
Tamil Nadu 80 119
Sikkim 85 118
Haryana 99 179
NREGA Below Minimum Wages
Karnataka 69 125
Rajasthan 73 119
Andhra Pradesh 80 121
Mizoram 91 129
Punjab 93-105 124-130
Kerala 125 150
Goa NA 138
110-120
100
90
80
100
100
122
110
87
80
109
96
110
100
81
114
110
111
85-100
100
167
134
135
125
132
143
200
157
“Minimum wages began to be
enforced only after NREGS was
pegged to it. I fear delinking will
again reduce the Minimum Wage
Act to a well-meaning, but
poorly-enforced, law.”
“The Centre is arguing that if a
state’s minimum wage is higher
than the NREGS wage rate, the state
should pay. We are arguing the
Centre has to pay the state’s
minimum wage rate.”
NIKHIL DEYActivist, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti
Sangathan
REDDY SUBRAMANYAMRural Development Secretary,
Andhra Pradesh
By linking itself to the ‘minimum wage’ rate, the NREGS wage rate did more for worker earnings than all state diktats put together.Now that the two are delinked, both states and civil society are up in arms, for their own reasons, reports M Rajshekhar
