1/10/2011 MGNREGA: Sonia's advice defied on m…

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MGNREGA: Sonia's advice defied on minimum wages

TNN, Jan 10, 2011, 05.01am IST

JAIPUR: The move of the ministry of rural development (MoRD) of not ensuring that workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are paid the minimum wages is being seen as a gross defiance of Congress president Sonia Gandhi's
plea to the Prime Minister.

The Mazdoor Kishan Shakti Sanghathan (MKSS) that has been advocating minimum wages for MGNREGA workers and which, along with
several other NGOs, are agitating in the city for about three fortnights has criticised this just days after the MoRD indexed MGNREGA wages to
inflation addresses but did nothing to ensure that it meets the Minimum Wages Act (MWA).

"The MGNREGA wage in 10 states will be less than the prevailing minimum wage. The thrust of the National Advisory Council (NAC)
chairperson, Sonia Gandhi's letter to the Prime Minister communicating the NAC consensus was that workers under the MGNREGA need to be
paid minimum wages as notified under the Minimum wages Act, 1948. She had further said that `Workers under MGNREGS are being paid less
than statutory minimum wage. This is totally unacceptable and needs to be corrected at once.' But the MoRD has done nothing regarding this,"
said Aruna Roy, member of the NAC and MKSS.

"In fact, the letter from the Prime Minister categorically stated that the government had decided that the MGNREGA workers would not be
covered by the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act. This is despite a strong contrary opinion from the ministry of labour among others," she
added.

Nikhil Dey, another activists of the MKSS, felt that this is a violation of a citizen's fundamental rights and tantamounts to forced labour. "The
Supreme Court in the Sanjit Roy v/s State of Rajasthan (1983) even declared the exemption of the Act as unconstitutional and had said that no
person shall be required or permitted to provide labour or service to another on payment of anything less than the minimum wage and if minimum
wage is not paid to a workman employed in any famine relief work, it would be clearly violative of Article 23," said Dey.

He also told Indira Jaisingh, additional advocate general, on the compulsions of the MoRD to pay the minimum wages.

"To have to belabour this point to the MoRD, no less, is proof of how far our country has drifted from the requirements of fundamental rights and
the ideals of Directive Principles of State Policy drafted by our forefathers. The MoRD has also deliberately ignored the orders of the Andhra Pradesh
High Court, and is facing contempt proceedings for not paying minimum wages to the MGNREGA workers. Even the current notification will
result in the MGNREGA workers still getting less than the minimum wage," Dey added.

The activists felt that the UPA government has strayed from its own promise in its Common Minimum Program where it had talked to about the
six basic principles for governance, including enhancing the welfare and well-being of farmers, farm labour and workers, particularly those in the
unorganised sector.

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