Labour dept short of staff, wage enforcement suffers

NEW DELHI: While the Delhi government recently notified the 11% hike in minimum wages, its labour department, which is entrusted with enforcing the law and take up cases of violations, continues to suffer from severe staff crunch.

Government records showed that Delhi has 24 working labour inspectors (entrusted with fact finding and primary investigation) against a sanctioned strength of 72, and five inspection officers (who delve deeper into records and deal with cases of minimum wages) against a sanctioned strength of 20. The labour department continues operating at around one-fourth the capacity - with a working strength of 141 officials against a sanctioned strength of 527, records showed.

Senior officials in the government attributed a large part of the crisis to a dispute over the jurisdiction of the “services department” for which, they said, they have lost control over recruitment and selection of employees.

In July 2018, the Supreme Court (SC) had observed that the office of Delhi’s lieutenant governor (L-G) is “bound by the aid and advice” of the elected government except for matters of land, police and public order, but the jurisdiction of the services department remained an unresolved domain. This department currently comes under the administration of the L-G.

On October 28, the Delhi government notified the revised minimum wages and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the move is likely to benefit 5.5 million workers in Delhi who are employed in different jobs.

Delhi has 13 police districts, 11 revenue districts and 11 labour districts. Labour dispute cases from these 11 districts go to nine district labour courts. These courts — that are supposed to be presided over by Joint labour commissioners (JLC) — are quasi-judicial bodies which refer unresolved cases to the judiciary.

Currently, records showed, Delhi has three Joint Labour Commissioners, against a sanctioned strength of 13. The three of them - along with two more officials functioning in Assistant

Labour Commissioner-rank – preside over the 11 labour courts in Delhi, the records showed.

“Four of them double up as presiding officers in two courts each. For that, the officers divide their schedule and often visit each court on alternate days,” said a senior officer in the labour department adding, currently the labour courts in Delhi have around 10,500 pending cases of different labour law violations.

Separate data for pending cases of minimum wages could not be obtained.

The SC, on October 17, allowed the Aam Aadmi Party (Aap)-led government to notify revised minimum wages for workers, which mandates a 11.11% hike in the monthly and daily allowance. This hike, recommended by a 36-member committee, is over and above the revised wages that were notified in 2017.

According to the 2017 notification, implemented on November 1, 2018, after an interim SC order, workers in Delhi were entitled to get minimum monthly wages of ₹13,350 (unskilled), ₹14,698 (semiskilled) and ₹16,182 (skilled). Now, the revised monthly wage would be ₹14,842 per month (unskilled), ₹16,341 (semi-skilled) and ₹17,991 (skilled).

Kejriwal said minimum wages in Delhi are currently the highest across the country.

(Per month) Unskilled workers

Semi-skilled workers

Skilled workers

Old wages