Minimum wage may jump 28% in India: Report

The national minimum floor wage in the country could go up by 28% if the draft rules to operationalise the Code on Wages 2019 is implemented, according to a report by Hindustan Times.

The Code on Wages, 2019, provides for a statutory national floor wage rate, below which no minimum wages can be fixed by any state body or employer.

As per the draft, which will be finalised in about four months, a central advisory board will fix a statutory national floor wage after taking into account “an equivalent of three adult consumption units”, including “food, clothing, housing and any other factors considered appropriate by the central government from time to time."

The floor wage, which will be revised every five years, will become the basis for new, multiple minimum wages at the federal and state levels.
The draft would also lay down the guidelines for fixing minimum wages.

Under the 7th Pay Commission, a minimum wage of Rs 18,000 per month or Rs 692 a day is allocated for all central government employees for a 26-day working month.

“The 7th Pay Commission recommendation setting the minimum salary at Rs18,000 will be the notional basis for the criteria hiking the floor wage,” an official of the labour ministry said.

If the draft is implemented, the minimum wage would go up by Rs 200 to Rs 225 per day, Prof KR Shyam Sundar of the Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, told the newspaper.