The figures were presented in a paper by Cept University professor Darshini Mahadevia who also heads Centre for Urban Equity
At a time when Gujarat is getting fancy labels like 'Detroit of India', 'fastest growing state' and 'investor-friendly state', a comparison of minimum wages of Gujarat with another industrial state Maharashtra does not paint positive strokes of Gujarat's attitude towards labour welfare.
The figures were presented in a paper by Cept University professor Darshini Mahadevia who also heads Centre for Urban Equity. The paper titled 'An Integrated Approach to Decent Work in Asia's Cities: Ahmedabad' was presented at a workshop at CEPT on Tuesday. In the paper, Mahadevia says that the state has set minimum wages at a much lower rate than central government and Maharashtra which is also a highly industrialised state.
The paper highlights that according to the 2007-08 data of National Sample Survey, in case of urban casual workers, the state ranked eighth with respect to male workers and 14th with respect to female workers. "Gujarat managed to retain the eighth position in case of wages paid to male casual workers but slipped from 9th rank in 1999-2000 to 14th in the case of female workers. Even in case of regular workers in the urban areas, the state ranked 18th in 2007-08 among the states in India as far as wages to males were concerned and 13th for females," states the paper.
According to the paper, in Ahmedabad, the number of self-employed labourers is increasing while that of regular employees is reducing. The data in the paper suggest that in 2004- 05 there were 23.6% self-employed, 70.8% with regular employment and 5.6 % casual labourers in the manufacturing sector. The same sector has, in 2009-10, around 48.4% self-employed, 44.7% regular employees and 6.9% casual labourers.
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