Civil rights group file PIL against non-implementation of minimum wage

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in Delhi High Court on Tuesday against the non-implementation of minimum wage as announced by the government in March this year.

The petition which was filed by Social Jurist, a civil rights group, said the hike in wages was at an unreasonably low rate, "prescribing inadequate, insufficient and meagre minimum wages, not enough to even beat inflation, has thereby violated the fundamental right of the workers to life."

In a letter dated March 3 this year, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal had approved the government's decision to hike the minimum wages of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers by 37 per cent.

The petition said there are 20 lakh factories and shops in Delhi which falls in the category of scheduled employment wherein about 60 lakh workmen are employed.

"Male workers on average receive Rs 6,000 per month and female workers on average receive Rs 5,000 per month as wages. The average wages of the workers received from their employers is almost half the current minimum wages," the petition claimed.

According to the plea, there are only 125 staff in the Labour Department with just 14 Labour Inspectors. It demanded that a directive be issued to the state government to increase the strength of trained Labour Inspectors and other staff of the Labour Department and to fill the vacancies.

"The payment of minimum wages to workers would favourably affect the education and health of the workers' children," said Ashok Agarwal, advocate and founder of Social Jurist. He added that over 60 lakh workers would be benefited by this scheme.