Skip to main content

Government may double minimum wage, revise formula

By

India may see a doubling of minimum wage nationally to about Rs 18,000 per month as the labour ministry is set to relook at the formula currently used to determine the floor level. 
The ministry is expected to take into consideration a proposal to double the units or individuals considered per family to six from three at present by including dependent parents as well as considering each child as one unit. 
Currently, husband, wife and two children in a family are considered three units, based on which minimum wage is determined for agriculture and non-agriculture workers under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. The Act is applicable to 47 central sector establishments and includes both agriculture and non-agriculture workers in the country. 
Labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya on Thursday said that a committee will be constituted to relook at the norms of fixation of minimum wages in the country. A decision to this effect was taken at the first meeting of the minimum wage central advisory board reconstituted recently. The last meeting of the board happened in 2010. 
"The Minimum Wage Act of 1948 is very old and the norms under the Act are not up to today's requirement of basic living. Hence a new committee will be shortly set up to revise the norms of fixation of minimum wages," Dattatreya said, adding that terms of reference of the committee will soon be finalised. 
According to Dattatreya, the primary issues that will be looked at include number of units per family, inclusion of dependent parents and treatment of women and children on a par with men. The labour ministry has nearly doubled the minimum wage for agriculture labourers including those hired on contract in March this year, six months after a 42% increase in minimum wages for non-agricultural labourers in August 2016 to Rs 350 a day for unskilled workers, translating into a monthly salary of Rs 9,100 per month.
Consequently, an unskilled agriculture labourer will be entitled to get a minimum wage of Rs 300 per day in C-category towns, up from Rs 160 now, or Rs 8,658 per month, while those in B and A category towns will get Rs 303 and Rs 333 respectively. Reiterating that labour code on wages will address most of wage issues, Dattatreya said he would table wage code bill in Parliament in the ongoing session. 
"Besides, I will soon write to chief ministers of all states to constitute the state level minimum wage advisory boards so that no state pays below universal minimum wage," he said. 
The Economic Times, New Delhi, 04th August 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Healthy balance sheets augur well for economy: RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra

By
  Large tariffs by the United States administration and elevated geopolitical risk have increased near-term global financial stability risks, and along with weather events pose downside risks to domestic growth, Reserve Bank of India(RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra said in the foreword to the Financial Stability Report released today.Noting that domestic growth momentum is buoyed by strong domestic drivers, sound macroeconomic fundamentals and prudent policies, Malhotra said: “External spillovers and weather-related events could pose downside risks to growth.”On the other hand, he said the outlook for inflation is benign, and there is greater confidence in the durable alignment of inflation with the Reserve Bank’s target.Commenting that the structural shifts reshaping the global economy are making policy intervention challenging, the Governor emphasised the need for central banks and financial sector regulators to remain vigilant, prudent and agile in safeguarding their economies and...
Post a Comment
Read more