Increase in NREGA wages by Re 1 to Rs 17 Modi govt’s "surgical strike" on workers

Counterview Desk
The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha has, in a statement, taken strong exception to the Government of India decision to raise NREGA workers' wages by a mere Re 1 to Rs 17, calling it "anti-workers decision". The top civil rights network has demanded an increase in the NREGA wage rate to Rs 600 a day, which it says is in consonance with the Seventh Pay Commission recommendation of Rs 18,000 as the minimum monthly salary for Central government employees.

NREGA Sangharsh Morcha commentary:

The wage rates for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) workers for 2019-20, notified by the Government of India, have again exposed the Centre’s lack of commitment for NREGA workers’ rights. The hike ranges from a meagre Re 1 to a majestic Rs. 17 for various states and Union Territories (UTs).

And workers of 6 states and UTs will have to be content with no hike at all. Workers of poor states like Jharkhand and Bihar, who did not get a hike last year, are lucky that will get an increase of Rs. 3 and Rs. 2 respectively. The average increase in NREGA wage rate across the country is a measly 2.6%.
For 33 states and Union Territories the NREGA wage rate is less than the corresponding minimum wage for agriculture, condemning its employment guarantee act workers to another year of bonded labour.

The difference is greatest in Goa, where the NREGA wage rate is only 62 per cent of the state minimum wage for agriculture. This ratio is in the range of 60-70 per cent for a number of poor states such as Telangana and Odisha.

At a time when the country is going through one of the worst employment crisis in decades, this meagre hike in NREGA wages is nothing less than a much-touted “surgical strike” on the poor. Unemployment is at a historical high.

The poor are still recovering from 2016’s demonetisation that crippled the informal economy that led to job-loss for millions across the country. It is ironical that while the government tom-toms about the spectacular economic growth in the last five years, rural wages have remained stagnant in the same period.
Despite recommendations from government-appointed committees to link NREGA wages with state minimum wages (by Mahendra Dev Committee) and to index the wage rate to Consumer Price Index - Rural Labourers (CPI-RL) instead of Consumer Price Index – Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL) (by Nagesh Singh Committee), the government did not even implement these meagre recommendations.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld minimum wages as a fundamental right and equated payment of anything less as “forced labour”.

Unremunerative NREGA wages, coupled with long delays in wage payments – even non-payment of wages in many cases – has turned many rural workers away from the employment guarantee programme.
In the last few years, workers took to streets several times to demand an increase in wage rate. Jharkhand’s workers even returned the meagre hike of Rs. 5 (in 2016-17) and Re. 1 (in 2017-18) to the Prime Minister to wake him up to their reality.

Amidst the political brouhaha of Ashirwad Yojana and minimum income guarantee programme, it is nothing less than a joke that the government is not able to ensure even minimum wages to workers.

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.

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.

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.

Counterview

Search This Blog