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“…we have to ensure inclusive and equitable growth, we need to knit and integrate our rural areas…. We cannot allow India to be divided into two distinct zones.”
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister, India
At stake is the UPA government’s flagship programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Though petitions have been filed at Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka high courts by individuals and workers’ groups questioning the competence of the Union government to fix wages under NREGA — which is less than the wages prescribed under Minimum Wages Act — the ground battle is now being fought in the capital of Rajasthan.
If the minimum wages is undermined, then NREGA loses its meaning. One aspect of the Act is to ensure jobs for the unemployed, the other aspect is to ensure that they get the due value
The States and the Centre have been at loggerheads even while agreeing that the Minimum Wages Act is to be followed in NREGA. But while the states have been asking the Centre to make the payment, the Centre has said it was the state’s onus of meeting the Minimum Wages Act and so they should make the payment.
The NAC also endorsed the fact that rules of the MGNREGA be amended so that outside parties are also allowed to audit the NREGS. Currently, Section 13 (b) of the Act only allows the Gram Sabha to do a social audit of the scheme and keep any outsiders at bay.
The NREGS, accused of taking away labourers from other sectors by offering attractive wages, should have a coherent wage policy consistent with the law, especially with the Minimum Wages Act.
A resolution was passed stating that “the current wage rate of Rs 100/day must be immediately indexed to the price level (using the Consumer Price Index for agricultural labourers, with April 1, 2009, as the base year), so that the purchasing power of MGNREGS wages is not eroded by price spurt”.
As of Ocotber 4th the Rajasthan state government agreeing to increase the minimum wages by 35% with effect from January 1.
As of now the people of Rajasthan are not concerned about how the state pays Rs 135 as wages for NREGA workers but that. It is upto the state whether it pays the money from its own funds or asks for a reimbursement from the Centre. But as far as the people are concerned no wages can be less than the minimum wages.
And that is exactly what the Working Group on Wages under the National Employment Guarantee Council has proposed to the Ministry of Rural Development only to meet with a staunch no for an answer.
The ministry has said: “This is not feasible. The wage rates fixed under Section 6 (1) of the Act are distinct from the minimum wages. The provisions of the Act have to be respected.” But while the ministry has its argument additional solicitor general, Government of India, Indira Jaising feels otherwise.
The lack of a coherent wage policy is responsible for this confusion over wages even in the fifth year of the Act’s implementation. The Act states wages have to be paid according to the “wage rate”, a rather ambiguous term, while the Minimum Wages Act asks states to decide and revise it according to the Consumer Price Index from time to time.
In January 2009, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) of the Government of India delinked MGNREGA wages from “minimum wages” through a notification, Under Section 6 (1) of the MGNREGA, until the Centre notifies a wage rate for a particular state, agricultural rates will apply. However, in December 2008, the Centre notified Rs 80 as wages to all states which were paying less than this for MGNREGS. This fundamentally undermined the sanctity of the Minimum Wages Act for all workers in India. Questions of (un)constitutionality have been considered and ignored, responsibilities passed from one government to the other, and fiscal concerns invoked to override fundamental, human rights and issues of morality and ethics.
In early 2008, amidst concerns that delivery of NREGA wages via Gram Panchayats and other less formal methods was leading to corruption in the scheme, the Ministry of Rural Development mandated that all NREGA wages be delivered through either a bank account or post office account.
Overall, only 43% of the total payments had been disbursed through the sources other than banks and post-offices. Interestingly, in many cases compliance of states in routing NREGA wages via formal accounts seems to bear little relation to the levels of financial inclusion of the state: for example, UP in which a low share of the population holds a bank account has performed relatively well on this metric while states such as Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, with much high rates of existing financial inclusion, have performed abysmally.
The NREGA addresses itself chiefly to working people and their fundamental right to live with dignity. The success of the NREGA, however, will depend on people’s realisation of the Act as a right. Effective levels of awareness and sustained public pressure are crucial to ensure that the implementation problems are addressed and the objectives met.
Related Articles
- Row over the minimum wage under NREGS (ibnlive.in.com)
- Depreciating wages of MGNREGA workers causes concern (thehindu.com)
- MNREGA workers peeved at being paid Re. 1 as daily wage (thehindu.com)
Muddy Murals 