Karnataka likely to raise minimum wage to Rs 20,000 per month

Bengaluru: In a major policy move expected to benefit around two crore workers in Karnataka, the state government is likely to increase minimum wages across organised and unorganised sectors. 

Unskilled labourers may get a sum of around Rs 20,000 per month as the minimum wage. 

Minimum wages are revised once every five years, with the existing figure in Karnataka being roughly Rs 15,000 for unskilled labourers.

A well-placed source told DH that the Labour Department intended to increase the wages to around Rs 20,000.

The move will catapult Karnataka to the top bracket of states paying the highest minimum wages. It is expected to positively impact the livelihood of 53-54 lakh organised-sector workers and another 1.5 crore workers in the unorganised sector.

The minimum wage is defined as the cost of providing basic living conditions for workers to ensure that they reproduce their labour power on the next day.

Workers are categorised as unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled, in that order, based on a progressive difference in skill sets. Currently, there is a 10 per cent wage difference between any two adjacent categories. 

As per Supreme Court guidelines, employers are mandated to pay minimum wages to each worker irrespective of their (employers) financial condition. 

In its landmark judgment in the Reptakos Brett case (1992), the Supreme Court had laid down criteria to fix minimum wages. 

Speaking to DH, Labour Minister Santosh Lad said: "I have had 6-7 meetings on this issue with all stakeholders and there have also been several inter-departmental meetings. We are committed to fixing minimum wages as per the Reptakos Brett case guidelines of the Supreme Court."

Additionally, the government intends to standardise minimum wages across all 83 schedules under the unorganised sector, which includes washermen, maidservants and manual scavengers. 

Once implemented, all schedules will have standardised wages in the four categories based on skill levels. Currently, these schedules have separate minimum wages. 

Welcoming the development, Satyanand Mukund, state secretary, All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said: “We welcome the government’s decision to implement the Reptakos Brett guidelines, which will ensure that wages are revised scientifically. However, if there are gaps in the implementation, we'll continue our struggle for rigid enforcement."

After the previous BJP government decided to increase the minimum wages by 5-10 per cent "arbitrarily" in 2022, the AITUC had challenged the decision in the High Court, contending that as per the Reptakos Brett guidelines, a monthly minimum wage of Rs 31,566 should be fixed for unskilled labourers.

After the union won the case in the single-judge bench of the High Court, employers went to the division bench. Now, the issue has been remanded back to the single-judge bench to consider employers' opinions, too.