Govt sets up expert panel to fix minimum pay, national floor wage

The Labour and Employment Ministry on Thursday constituted an expert group to provide technical inputs and recommendations on fixation of minimum wages and national floor for minimum wages.

This is the second expert committee on minimum wages formed by the government within the last two years. The earlier panel, headed by Anoop Satpathy, Fellow, VV Giri National Labour Institute, was set up by the ministry on January 17, 2018, to undertake an evidence-based analysis to determine methodology for fixing national minimum wage. The recommendations, which weren’t accepted by the Centre, included setting the national floor wage at Rs 375 per day (Rs 9,750 per month) as per July 2018 prices.

The expert group announced on Thursday has been constituted for a period of three years and is chaired by Ajit Mishra, Director, Institute of Economic Growth. It includes Tarika Chakraborty, IIM Calcutta; Anushree Sinha, Senior Fellow, NCAER; Vibha Bhalla, Joint Secretary; H Srinivas, Director General, VVGNLI as the members and DPS Negi, Senior Labour and Employment Advisor as the Member Secretary.

To arrive at the wage rates, the group will look into international best practices on the wages and evolve a scientific criteria and methodology for fixation of wages, a statement said.

Under the Code on Wages, which is yet to be enforced, a National Floor Level Minimum Wage will be set by the Centre to be revised every five years, while states will fix minimum wages for their regions, which cannot be lower than the floor wage. The current floor wage, which was fixed in 2017, is at Rs 176 a day, but some states have minimum wages lower than it.