-Hindustan Times The design of large injections of public funds for India’s agriculture economy needs to be informed with rigorous evaluations on what is effective for higher farm productivity. A wage subsidy for farm-labour is one modification that needs an evaluation, to generate evidence to inform how the MGNREGA policy generates employment when there is need, but without stress to farm production Indian agriculture is witnessing a period of complex socio-economic distress,...

-India Legal Despite the apex court saying that minimum pay is a fundamental right, the centre has made no attempt to harmonise these with statutory minimum remuneration of agricultural labourers in states Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his colleagues in the NDA government and the BJP never tire of reiterating their slogan, Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas or of talking about Antyodaya, a doctrine which talks about the “rise of the last person”. Yet, if...

-The Indian Express A report, prepared by a Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) committee states that wages under the rural employment guarantee scheme were last aligned to minimum wages in 2009, and that “there is no compelling reason to align MGNREGA and states minimum wages again”. New Delhi: THE PANEL for revision of wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has recommended in its final report that there...

-The Indian Express The study done independently by Rajendran Narayanan of the Azim Premji University said the money the government does not pay rural workers constitutes 57 per cent of the total compensation due to workers. An independent study on 92 lakh MGNREGA transactions across 10 states has found that the central government does not calculate or pay any compensation for a part of the last-mile delay before money reaches bank accounts...

-The Indian Express As per data being examined by the committee, the minimum wages paid to agricultural workers are significantly higher than MGNREGA wages in Karnataka, Punjab, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Mizoram, and Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. THE COMMITTEE for revision of wages paid under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Act (MGNREGA) has found that minimum agricultural wages are higher than MGNREGA wages in 15 states. An upward revision...