No compelling reason why NREGA workers should get minimum wages as stipulated by Act: Govt of India panel

In a move that has shocked farm workers’ activists, a high-level Government of India committee headed by a senior bureaucrat has recommended that the wages paid under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) cannot be on par with minimum agricultural wages law for rural farm workers.
In its report, the Committee on Alignment of NREGA Wages with Minimum Agricultural Wages, set up by the Ministry of Rural Development, has said a major reason why there should be divergence is, “There is a major difference in the work done by the agricultural labourers and the work performed by NREGA workers.”
Headed by additional secretary Nagesh Singh, the committee, which has given its recommendations in July 2017, believes, this is necessary, as “the wage rate for agricultural labourer is basically a time rate”, while “wages under NREGA are for piece rate work with fixed schedule of rates for work which is measured and only then payment is made.”
Even otherwise, says the committee, the workers under NREGA “by and large” work less than other rural workers: “An agricultural worker is expected to have a nine hour work day with eight hours of work and one hour of rest”, adding, on the other hand, an NREGA worker “is expected to have an eight hour work day with 7 hours of work and one hour of rest.”
The committee’s recommendation is based on section 6(1) of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, which said, “Notwithstanding anything contained in the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Central Government may, by notification, specify the wage rate for the purposes of this Act.”
Another major reason why the committee rejects the idea of going according to the minimum wages, it says, is that “state governments follow different methods for fixation of minimum wages for agricultural labour” and “wages also differ for different agricultural activities”.
Insisting that NREGA wages are, in fact, based on “scientific principles of indexation”, the committee, even as asking states “to follow a uniform and scientific policy for indexation”, underlines, “r.”
Pointing out that, as payments under NREGA “depend on the work accomplished and the schedule of rates (SORs)”, the committee recommends setting up of a technical team consisting engineers from
“reputed” institutes to work out “templates for preparing SORs for major items of work” taken up under NREGA.”
Interestingly, the committee rejects the recommendation another panel NREGA wage fixation headed by Prof Mahendra Dev, director, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, which said in 2015 that “the baseline for NREGA wage indexation” should be the current minimum wage rate for unskilled agricultural labourers fixed by the states under the Minimum Wages Act, or the current NREGA wage rate, “whichever is higher.”
Taking strong exception to the committee’s recommendations, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha, which is the apex body of tens of organizations seeking to link NREGA wages with minimum wage rate, has accused it of “perpetuating” the violation of the Minimum Wages Act.
“The constitutional courts have repeatedly stated that the Minimum Wages Act cannot be violated under any circumstances”, the Morcha says in a statement, adding, “The High Courts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and legal experts have clarified that Section 6(1) of the NREGA does not allow for the overriding of the Minimum Wages Act.”

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog