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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Rural job plan bill may go up by Subodh Ghildiyal

Rural job plan bill may go up by Subodh Ghildiyal

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published Published on Oct 9, 2011   modified Modified on Oct 9, 2011

The Central expenditure on the job guarantee scheme may shoot up with civil society pressure that wages under the MGNREGAshould be governed by the Minimum Wages Act.

NAC member Aruna Roy on Saturday urged Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi to implement the Karnataka high court order which has struck down the government order that wages under the scheme could be lower than the minimum wages in the state.

The HC order has revived an old debate which saw divisions within UPA. The activists have long demanded that MGNREGA should pay workers according to the Minimum Wages Act but the Centre had ignored the linkage.

Karnataka pegged its job guarantee wages at Rs 82 in 2009 and then raised them to Rs 100, both below the notified farm wages in the state. Following a legal challenge, the HC struck down the practice and sought parity between the two wages.

While there is a view in government that the HC order should be challenged, as it would set a precedent for all states and hike the financial outgo on the jobs scheme, the government is worried that any opposition to a better deal for workers could bring charges of Centre shortchanging the poor.

The Centre is wary after the recent controversy over 'poverty line' which put the Congress in the line of fire. The Planning Commission in an affidavit in the Supreme Court implied that individuals spending over Rs 32 per day were above the "poverty line".

In her letter to Sonia Gandhi, Aruna Roy called for the implementation of the Karnataka HC order. She reminded the NAC chairperson that the government had ignored her suggestion last October to link MGNREGA wages with minimum wages, a stance which was disputed even by Union labour ministry.

Roy said, "This very issue was under litigation in high courts of Andhra and Karnataka. The AP HC has already passed an interim order... now Karnataka HC has made it clear that refusal of the government to pay MGNREGA workers minimum wage is a violation of their fundamental rights, amounts to forced labour..."

The Times of India, 9 October, 2011, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Rural-job-plan-bill-may-go-up/articleshow/10283474.cms


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