Govt to hike minimum wages to boost economy: Labour Secretary

The government will enhance minimum wages and make it mandatory across the country to boost demand of goods and services for pushing economic growth and creating jobs, Labour Secretary Shankar Aggarwal today said.

"We will create a law to give certain minimum wages across the country in all trades and not only in scheduled employments (as per existing law)," Aggarwal said while addressing at a conference organised by CII here.

He further said, "We will increase the wages under Minimum Wage Act so that workers have decent wages aligned with inflation and have some money to buy goods and services."

Aggarwal is of the view that the economic growth can be boosted by creating jobs and for that there is need of creating demand of goods and services for increasing manufacturing and other economic activities.

"For creating jobs, we need to create demand for goods and services. But it would happen only when there is money in the pocket of buyers," he said.

In the present scenario, labour is under the concurrent list of the constitution. The centre as well as the states fix minimum wages for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers in their jurisdiction.

Trade unions have been demanding for a minimum wage of Rs 15,000 per month across the board which should be applicable in the entire country.

Labour Ministry is now mulling an amendment to Minimum Wage Act to fix a mandatory minimum level of wages applicable across the country for all categories of workers, which will be aligned with inflation and sufficiency to create demand for goods and services.

Aggarwal also said that the government will very soon cover all workers under various social security schemes.

Speaking at the same event, International Labour Organisation Director (India) Panudda Boonpala said labour law reforms is a huge and complex task.

She added, dialogue as well as collective bargaining is the way out for going ahead with massive labour law reforms.