Govt amending Minimum Wages Act

The  government on Wednesday said it is in the process of amending the Minimum Wage Act to address the problems of labour and contract workers and the amended legislation will be taken up by the Union Cabinet soon. 

Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya informed the Rajya Sabha that the government has already prescribed a minimum wage of Rs 10,000 for contract workers and it was committed to providing job, wage and social security to workers.

“I am also happy to inform that we are in the process of amending the Minimum Wages Act. Our government is prepared to amend the Minimum Wages Act and has come forward to amend the Act. We are going to have a minimum wage Amendment Act. Already, an inter-Ministerial group has gone into it. It has gone for vetting and after that it will go to the Cabinet and then become a legislation,” he said.

Replying to supplementaries, he said, the NDA government is giving utmost priority to job security, wage security and social security. On problems of contract workers, he said, “We are totally in direction with the Supreme Court. As per the consumer price index, there are some parameters. We have taken into account those parameters.”

“We have given a notification, which is published, for providing minimum Rs 10,000 per month to contract workers,” he said. He added, “our prime concern is job security. I am concentrating on unorganised workers. They have a lot of problems.”