DELHI GOVT TO ADOPT CENTRE’S MINIMUM WAGES SCHEME: RAI

HIGH Court HAD struck Down DELHI Govt’s notification on Saturday

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government will adopt the Centre's minimum wages scheme after the high court quashed its notification on the matter as 'flawed', Delhi Labour Minister Gopal Rai said on Thursday.

"The Centre's scheme on minimum wages launched in April will ensure higher wages than what the Delhi government's scheme would have provided. Under the central scheme, skilled workers will get approximately Rs 17,400 per month as against Rs 16,800 under the Delhi government scheme. Unskilled workers will get Rs 14,300 compared with Rs 13,800 under the Delhi government's scheme," Rai told the media after a meeting with trade union leaders here.

On August 17, 2016, the Delhi cabinet had announced about 50 percent hike in minimum wages in national Capital. With this revised minimum wages, the minimum rates of wages for unskilled categories will be Rs 14,052, earlier it was Rs 9,568. Similarly, for semiskilled categories of workers, the revised minimum wage will be Rs 1,5471, while the previous rate was Rs 10,582.

Meanwhile for skilled categories of workers, the minimum wages, which was earlier Rs 11,622, have been revised to Rs 16,800.

The Delhi high court on Saturday had struck down the March notification on higher minimum wages for workers in Delhi as “unconstitutional”. “The constitution of the committee (on the matter) was completely flawed and its advice was not based on relevant material and suffers from non-application of mind,” the bench had said.

In its 218-page verdict, a bench of Acting Chief Justice

The Centre’s scheme on minimum wages launched in April will ensure higher wages than what the Delhi govt’s scheme would have provided

Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar had also set aside a September 2016 notification by which a Minimum Wages Advisory Committee for all scheduled employments was set up, saying that its constitution was “completely flawed”. Rai also said that the Kejriwal government will form a committee with twice the number of representatives on the issue. “After the committee is formed and the scheme finalized by the Delhi government, we will roll out the scheme for two months and take public feedback,” the Minister said.

Earlier, the Labour Minister had said that the Delhi government will move the Supreme Court against the High Court judgment. He now says he will hold a meeting with trade unions on August 14 to discuss further course of action. The high court order followed several PILS including one filed by Social Jurist, a civil rights group which pleaded that the hike in wages was unreasonably low and as such violated the workers' fundamental right to life.