PM: MNREGA wages not under wages act
The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in his letter to the NAC chairperson, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, has stated that the wages given under the MNREGA scheme are outside the ambit of Minimum Wages Act. It may be recalled that Mrs Gandhi in a letter to the Prime Minister on November 11, 2010 had stated that the Minimum Wages
Act paid under the MNREGA should adhere to the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Not satisfied with the PM’s response, the NAC member and the member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan (MKSS), Ms Aruna Roy, said that the issue need to be discussed in the next NAC meeting.
In his reply, the Prime Minister stated that the “consensual view that emerged during consultation is that statutorily the wage rate under MNREGA is delinked and independent of the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act, the government is committed to projecting a real wage of `100 per day, per person, as announced in the Budget speech of 2009.” Mrs Gandhi in her letter while asking that the MNREGA should follow Minimum Wages Act, 1948 stated that the PM “will take this matter into cognisance and issue necessary instruction.”
However, the Prime Minister suggested that the issue be kept under “consumer index based on agricultural prices.” He wrote, “It has been decided to index the wage rate notified under the MNREGA to the consumer price index for agricultural labour...”
Prime Minister has, however, added that rural development ministry has constituted a committee headed by Dr Pranav Sen to monitor the payment made under MNREGA.
The Prime Minister also observed that the payment made under MNREGA would also help people fight inflation. “I am confident that the mechanism would appropriately address the concern of protecting real wages of MNREGA workers from inflation,” Dr Singh wrote.
Reacting to the Prime Minister’s letter the MKSS and the SR Abhiyan have claimed that the government’s move to not to “see the need to pay statutory minimum wages to MNREGA workers is a violation of a constitutional right and has shocked and deeply disturbed the MKSS and the SR Abhiyan.”
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