PM rejects NAC's recommendation on minimum pay

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has shot down the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council's recommendation that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) workers be paid the minimum wages set by states.

The prime minister, in his December 31 letter to the UPA chairperson, clarified that the wage rate fixed by the central government would be indexed to inflation but not linked to the Minimum Wage Act.

The PM's letter says that the consensual view that emerged after discussions with the ministries involved was that while NREGS wages should remain delinked from the Minimum Wage Act, the government will protect a real wage of Rs 100 per day by indexing the wage rate to the Consumer Price Index for agricultural labourers, from January 1, 2011 onwards.

The base will be reset every five years. A committee under the chairmanship of chief statistician Pronab Sen is working on an index for fixing NREGS wages in the future, the letter adds.

Members of the Rajasthan-based Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan whose pioneering efforts contributed to the passage of the Employment Guarantee Act termed the PM's decision as a violation of a Constitutional right. ''This represents a threat to the minimum wage structure which is the only buffer that the vulnerable have against inflation and arbitrary changes,'' Nikhil Dey of the MKSS told TOI. Inflation indexing, which is part of the Minimum Wage Act, will not by itself raise the wages of all NREGS workers to the minimum wage, he added.

Read more: PM rejects NAC's recommendation on minimum pay - The Times of India
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