Ensure minimum wages for NREGS workers: Aruna Roy writes to Sonia

Aruna Roy, a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC), has appealed to the council’s chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, to intervene and ensure that minimum wages prevailing in the different states are paid to workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

In a recent order (September 23) the Karnataka High Court had ruled that the Centre could not fix a wage rate for NREGS workers that was lower than the prevailing minimum wages in the state.

She said the denial of minimum wages to NREGS workers was a worse form of injustice than the poverty line assertion of the Planning Commission that people who lived on Rs 32 a day were not poor.

In her letter, Roy wrote: “It is imperative that the Central government accept the Karnataka Court judgment and immediately ensure the payment of minimum wages to NREGS workers. The failure of the central government to do so will undermine the legal, moral and political legitimacy of the government and undermine its commitment to the poor.”

Earlier, a similar interim order was made by the Andhra High Court on July 3, 2009, of which the central government continues to be in contempt for more than 2 years, she says in her letter.

The rural development ministry has rejected the call for linking NREGS wages with the minimum wages, even as the labour ministry as well as legal experts have pointed out that NREGS is unconstitutional if it violates the Minimum Wages Act.

However, according to Aruna Roy’s letter to Sonia Gandhi, there is a change the stand of the rural development ministry under Jairam Ramesh who feels that the high court’s order should not be ignored and a long-term solution needs to be found.

Roy points out that the ruling reiterates the assertions of some of the senior jurists in the country of the need to pay minimum wages to NREGS workers, and terming the failure to do so is tantamount to “forced labour”.