11/2/2010 IBNLive : Row over the minimum wage …

Row over the minimum wage under NREGS

Rupashree Nanda
CNN-IBN

New Delhi: It is the latest face off between Sonia Gandhi led National
Advisory Council and Manmohan Singh led UPA government. The
Council and the Rural Development Ministry have come to blows over
what should be the minimum wage under the National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme.
The NAC's resolution that endorses the urgent need for increasing
wages is in direct conflict with the position taken by the Rural
Developemnt Ministry. At the heart of the conflict is the debate of
whether NREGS wages can be less than Minimum wages.
Hence, it is a royal battle over a 100-rupee wage far from the limelight.
In one corner is CP Joshi, Rural Development Minister, and in the other
is the Sonia Gandhi led NAC. Joshi believes NREGS wages cannot be higher than 100 rupees even if the minimum
wage is more than 100 rupees in many states. But the NAC's latest resolution says NREGS wages cannot be lesser
than the minimum wage.
This NAC resolution meant to force the Rural Development minister to take another look at the rule that froze wages at
100 rupees has left Joshi unfazed. It seems he is neither deterred that the resolution has the backing of his own party
president Sonia Gandhi nor convinced of the merits of the case.
This puts the government on shaky legal ground. The right to a minimum wage is guaranteed by the Minimum Wages
Act, 1948 and a 1983 Supreme Court judgment. More recently the ASG, Indira Jaisingh said, ''the payment of wage
below minimum wage would amount to forced labour''. Finally the AP High Court in September upheld the right to
minimum wages even under the NREGS.
The NAC has been forced to play bad cop yet again in this latest face-off with the central government. And it is clear
that this battle to get the government to pay the minimum wage will be a long-drawn affair.

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