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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Centre in a bind over K'taka HC order on MNREGA by Subodh Ghildiyal

Centre in a bind over K'taka HC order on MNREGA by Subodh Ghildiyal

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published Published on Oct 7, 2011   modified Modified on Oct 7, 2011

Chastened by the 'poverty line' controversy painting the Centre as insensitive to 'aam aadmi', the government is wary of challenging a Karnataka high court order which slammed the state for paying MGNREGA workers less than the minimum farm wages. 

The court said that job scheme wages could not be less than the minimum agricultural wages and ordered that workers be paid the arrears. 

The HC order would put an additional burden of Rs 3,500 crore on the Centre which funds the job scheme. Also, the order would be applicable for all states and massively increase the financial outgo. The court order, government officials think, should be appealed against. 

However, the rural development ministry is wary of challenging the order benefitting poor workers, a decision which could easily invite charges of the Centre being "anti-poor". Coming on the back of outrage over poverty line, any move to overturn a judicial verdict ordering higher wages for MGNREGA workers runs the risk of reinforcing the negative impression about the Centre. 

A Planning Commission affidavit in the Supreme Court, identifying an individual spending over Rs 32 per day as being above the poverty line, triggered a political storm. Social activists and political opposition joined hands to slam the Centre as "insensitive". The backdrop of food inflation, which has made living expensive, only fuelled the anger. 

The public debate forced the plan panel to clarify that poverty line, howsoever defined, would not decide the fate of entitlements under subsidy schemes, in what appeared a desperate bid to put a lid over the row. Congress was jolted by the feedback that a perception of the party shortchanging the poor could harm its prospects in coming state elections. 

With public anger still simmering, RD ministry is having second thoughts about challenging the court order. RD minister Jairam Ramesh said the future course of action would be "a political decision based on fiscal constraints". He, however, said, "instinctively, he was not for appeal against the HC order". 

The HC order, setting farm wages as minimum MGNREGA wages, could have serious implications for the Centre. While eight big states had job wages lower than farm wages in 2009, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan still have a similar pattern. 

In 2009, when the petition was filed in the Karnataka HC, MGNREGA wages in the state were Rs 82 while farm wages stood at Rs 125 and were later revised to Rs 100 and Rs 134 respectively. 

The Times of India, 6 October, 2011, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-10-06/india/30250110_1_mgnrega-workers-farm-wages-mgnrega-wages


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