Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the rural development ministry to develop an index for fixing and revising wages under rural job scheme NREGA. The move follows a letter from Sonia Gandhi requesting Singh to find a way to ensure workers under the scheme are paid the minimum wages across the country. The minimum wages in several states, such as Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Karnataka, are now higher than...
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PM rejects NAC's recommendation on minimum pay by Rukmini Shrinivasan
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has shot down the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council's recommendation that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) workers be paid the minimum wages set by states. The prime minister, in his December 31 letter to the UPA chairperson, clarified that the wage rate fixed by the central government would be indexed to inflation but not linked to the Minimum Wage Act. The PM's letter says...
More »NREG wage hike is stuck because NAC fighting PMO by Ravish Tiwari
A notification expected on January 1 to hike wages of workers under the national job guarantee scheme — to counter inflation — is stuck because of pressure from National Advisory Council activists who want this hike to be linked to the Minimum Wages Act. The Rural Development Ministry was slated to notify revised NREGS wages indexing it to the consumer price index for agricultural labourers (CPI-AL) with April 2009 as the...
More »Plan to link NREGA wages to inflation hits CP Joshi wall by Priyadarshi Siddhanta
Rural Development Minister CP Joshi has refused to move on a proposal by the Planning Commission to link wages under the national job guarantee scheme to the consumer price index. In fact, the Plan panel’s proposal was echoed by the National Advisory Council chaired by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.In a presentation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently, the Planning Commission made a strong case for aligning the wage levels to...
More »NREGA 2010: Politics in Slow Motion?
More things change more they remain the same! UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has given her full support; two Congress chief ministers have written to the Prime Minister; a High Court (A.P) has ruled that the current wage rate violated the Minimum Wages Act 1948 --- but the rural workers are still getting the same old rate. When the MGNREGA workers lifted their 47-day dharna at Jaipur after the Centre and...
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