Wages under rural job scheme could be raised

THE REVISION WOULD MEAN MORE MONEY IN THE HANDS OF FARMERS AND COULD HELP THE GOVT FIX RURAL DEMAND

NEWDELHI: The rural development ministry proposes to increase daily wages for the poor under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by between ₹13 and ₹32 for the implementation of its flagship job generation programme in the states.

Any upward revision of wages will mean more money in the hands of farmers and could help the government improve slack rural demand that has pulled down overall economic growth. In its annual budget presented on

February 1, the government estimated economic growth in the current fiscal year ending March would be 5%, the lowest for 11 years.

National Statistical Office (NSO) data on Thursday showed that food inflation declined from 13.6% in January to 10.8% in February 2020, but remains elevated. Real rural wages have been declining for 10 consecutive months, according to data available until December.

The hikes proposed by the rural development ministry for fiscal 2020-21 have been calculated on the basis of the Consumer Price Index (Agricultural Labour), or CPI (AL), which has been the inflation index to fix labour payments for the rural job guarantee scheme for many years.

There have been efforts to replace CPI (AL) with a CPI (Rural), but the finance ministry is yet to give its final approval for the switchover, government officials said on