Wages in Gujarat are one of the lowest in the country, say National Sample Survey data, released last week

By Rajiv Shah
The latest National Sample Survey (NSS) data have suggested that Gujarat's regular wage earners, salaried classes and the casual workers are being paid one of the lowest wages as compared to most Indian states. While Gujarat may claim to have the highest pace of urbanisation in India, shockingly, as against the all-India average per day earning of urban regular wage earners and salaried persons of Rs 450 per day, in Gujarat it is a poor Rs 320. This, if the NSS, which carried out its survey in 2011 and 2012, is to be believed, is the lowest compared to anywhere else in the country.
In fact, even the so-called backward states offer better wages to its salaries employees and regular workers. In Bihar, it is Rs 412, in Chhattisgarh Rs 323, in Assam Rs 607, in Madhya Pradesh Rs 436, in Odisha 432, in Rajasthan Rs 417, and in Uttar Pradesh Rs 483. Regular wages and salaries in “comparable states”, which compete with Gujarat for achieving developmental goals, are -- Maharashtra Rs 486, Andhra Pradesh Rs 395, Karnataka Rs 487, Haryana Rs 777, Punjab Rs 362, and Tamil Nadu Rs 390.
The NSS has situation was found to be equally bad in with regard to casual labour in urban areas. Casual wages, on an average, are Rs 145 per day in Gujarat, which, again, is worse than 20 major states, except for four -- Chhattisgarh, where it was Rs 106, Madhya Pradesh Rs 126, Uttar Pradesh Rs 143 and West Bengal Rs 128. In casual labour in urban areas, Kerala tops the list with Rs 310 per day on an average, with the all-India average being Rs 170. Significantly, most of the urban wage earners work in industry, and the Gujarat government is in forefront in advocating the anti-labour exit policy.
Coming to casual workers in the rural areas, Gujarat was found to be equally bad. In rural areas, casualisation has taken place on a massive scale and small and marginal farmers are increasingly turning into wage labourers. The NSS survey has found that the casual workers’ wages in rural Gujarat – on an average – are Rs 113, as against the all-India average of Rs 139. Here, Gujarat is worse than all 20 major states except two -- Chhattisgarh (Rs 84) and Madhya Pradesh (Rs 105). The earning of casual workers in rural areas was, again, found to be the highest in Kerala, Rs 315, which is almost three times that of Gujarat.
Things are slightly better with regular wage earners and salaried classes of the rural areas, who in any case form a small section. Here, on an average, per person per day earning is Rs 254 per day, as against the all-India average of Rs 298.96. Several “backward” were found to be performing better in their respective rural areas -- Bihar (Rs 411.82), Assam (Rs 302.22), Rajasthan (Rs 305.59), Uttar Pradesh (Rs 276.13), Jharkhand (Rs 478.61). The survey shows that regular wages and salaries in rural areas were higher in as many as 14 out of 20 major states compared to Gujarat.
Urban Gujarat's poverty should be a matter of concern. According to the 2011 Census, 42.6 per cent of Gujarat's population lives in urban areas, as against 37 per cent in 2001, making the state one of the fastest growing urbanized states in the country, fast catching up with Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Yet, the fact is, urban poverty has failed to come down in any drastic way. In fact, the percentage of urban poverty in Gujarat during the second half of the decade ending 2010 was a mere 2.2 per cent, from 20.1 per cent to 17.9 per cent, which just about 0.44 per cent per annum.
Notably, this was lower than a dozen out of 20 major states, including Madhya Pradesh, which saw a whopping 12.2 per cent reduction in urban poverty, followed by Orissa (11.7), Rajasthan (9.8), Maharashtra (7.3), Tamil Nadu (6.9), Karnataka (6.3), Kerala (6.3), Andhra Pradesh (5.7), Chhattisgarh (4.6), Bihar (4.3), Uttar Pradesh (2.4) and West Bengal (2.4). The all-India average percentage of urban poverty reduction is 4.6.
Poor wages in Gujarat become worse for the female workers of every category. The average male casual workers’ wage in the urban areas, according to the survey, was Rs 161, as against the female wage of Rs 89. As for regular wage earners and salaried employees in the urban areas, the average per day earning in Gujarat was found to be Rs 326 for males and Rs 272 for females. Of course, this is not at all Gujarat specific, yet the fact is, Gujarat’s females are one of the worst earners of wages compared to most Indian states.

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Warning bells for India: Tribal exploitation by powerful corporate interests may turn into international issue

By Ashok Shrimali* Warning bells are ringing for India. Even as news drops in from Odisha that Adivasi villages, one after another, are rejecting the top UK-based MNC Vedanta's plea for mining, a recent move by two senior scholars Felix Padel and Samarendra Das suggests the way tribals are being exploited in India by powerful international and national business interests may become an international issue. In fact, one has only to count days when things may be taken up at the United Nations level, with India being pushed to the corner. Padel, it may be recalled, is a major British authority on indigenous peoples across the world, with several scholarly books to his credit.

Gujarat Bitcoin scam worth Rs 5,000 crore "linked" with BJP leaders: Need for Supreme Court monitored probe

By Shaktisinh Gohil* BJP hit a jackpot in the form of demonetisation, which it used as an alibi to convert black money into white in Gujarat. Even as party scrambles for answers of how the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), whose director is BJP president Amit Shah, received old currency worth Rs 745.58 crore in just five days, and how Rs 3118.51 crore was deposited in 11 district cooperative banks linked with Gujarat BJP leaders, a new mega Bitcoin scam, worth more than Rs 5,000 crore has been unraveled.

Counterview

Search This Blog