REPORT ON THE WORKING OF THE MINIMUM WAGES ACT, 1948 FOR

 THE YEAR 2006

SECTION-III

III.    STATISTICS COLLECTED UNDER THE MINIMUM WAGES

ACT, 1948

3.1       All establishments covered under the Act are required to furnish to the concerned authority (Central or State) an annual return in prescribed form as per the rules framed under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.   The Centre / State Governments in turn send a consolidated return (Annexure IV) to the Labour Bureau which compiles an all India report based on the data contained in these returns after scrutiny to ensure accuracy and consistency of data.  Where the monthly Minimum Wages have been reported, these have been converted to daily minimum wages by dividing the monthly wages by 26, the fortnightly and weekly minimum wages have been divided by 12 and 6 respectively to arrive at the daily minimum wage.

3.2       ADDITION OF NEW EMPLOYMENTS

3.2.1    The State Governments and the Union Territories review the Scheduled Employments under their jurisdiction from time to time and add new employments in respect of which it is of the opinion that minimum rates of wages should be fixed statutorily in addition to the existing ones.  

3.2.2    During the year 2006, two State Governments namely Gujarat and  Kerala  have added one employment each  to the Schedule appended to the Act (Table 1).

3.3       FIXATION OF MINIMUM WAGES FOR THE FIRST TIME

3.3.1    Table – 2 shows that during the year 2006, the minimum wages were fixed for the first time by the State of Gujarat in the scheduled employment Private Security Guard Services.  These are Rs. 98.80 in Zone-I and Rs. 97.80 in Zone-II.

3.4       SCHEDULED EMPLOYMENTS AND PREVAILING MINIMUM WAGE RATES

3.4.1    The Central Government and the different State Governments have been maintaining a set of scheduled employments for fixing minimum rates of wages under their respective jurisdiction.  This set undergoes a change as and when there is an addition of an employment in the schedule appended to the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 by these appropriate Governments. 

Table 3 presents the data for 16 States/Union Territories and CLC (Central) on Minimum Wages for Unskilled Workers in Scheduled Employments as on 31.12.2006.  The number of scheduled employments varies from State to State and so do the minimum wages.  Amongst the States, the largest number of scheduled employments was reported from Orissa which stood at 83 and the lowest were reported from Himachal Pradesh  where the employments added to the scheduled appended to the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 stood at 12. In case of Union Territories, the maximum number of scheduled employments i.e.48 was reported from Chandigarh and the minimum i.e. 6 from Andaman and Nicobar Islands.  An analysis of the table also shows that there is no uniformity in the wage structure as some States pay consolidated wages (Basic + Dearness Allowance) and some are reporting D.A. as a separate component. Only 5 states, 1 UT and the CLC Central have linked wages to periodic revision of DA. Further, 10 States/Union Territories are paying by and large equal wages to all the unskilled workers in all the scheduled employments.

3.5       SCHEDULED EMPLOYMENTS AND RANGE OF MINIMUM

WAGE RATES

3.5.1    The total number of employments in respect of which the minimum wage rates have been fixed / revised and the range of minimum wage rates in different States / Union Territories as on 31.12.2006 have been presented in Table 4.

3.5.2    It emerges from the Table that the number of scheduled employments was highest in the State of Orissa  (83) followed by Bihar (75) and Rajasthan (61).

3.5.3        The dispersion of wage rates as measured by the range between the lowest minimum wage rate and the highest minimum wage rate at all States / U.Ts. level is very large, which is reflected by the fact that it is zero in case of the States/Union Territories which are paying equal wages to all the unskilled workers in all the scheduled employments whereas it is the maximum in case of the State of Kerala i.e. Rs. 265.20.

3.6       MINIMUM WAGE RATES IN SCHEDULED EMPLOYMENTS IN CENTRAL SPHERE / STATES / UNION TERRITORIES

3.6.1    Table 5 depicts a comparative picture of the minimum wage rates per day prevailing in the scheduled employments in Central Sphere / States / Union Territories.  The main purpose of classifying this information is

(a)    to study the inter-State variations in the minimum wage rates in a particular scheduled employment and

(b)   to present the number and names of the States / U.Ts. fixing minimum wages for a particular employment at one place.

3.6.2    It is clear from the Table that as on 31.12.2006 there were in all 267 different types of scheduled employments all over India for which minimum wage rates have been fixed / revised by the Central Government / States / Union Territories submitting returns . However glaring difference in the range minimum wages were found seen in the same scheduled employment in States or U.Ts.  For instance, in   Agriculture, the minimum wage rate of Rs.55.00 per day was reported from the States of Arunachal Pradesh  and Orissa and Rs. 139.00 per day was prevalent in Nicobar Islands.  Similarly in Brick Kiln Industry, minimum wage rate of Rs.73.00 and Rs.163.10 per day were observed in Rajasthan and Kerala respectively.  Further in Cinema/Theatre, minimum wage rates of Rs.55.00 per day were found in Arunachal Pradesh and Orissa and and Rs.127.00 per day  in Chandigarh. In case of  Dal/Flour/Rice Mills,  minimum wage rates of Rs. 55.00 per day was reported from the States of Arunachal Pradesh and Orissa  and Rs. 142.20 per day were prevalent in Kerala.   The same pattern is observable in the other scheduled employments as well.   Almost in all the scheduled employments the highest wages are being paid in the state of Kerala and lowest in the States of Arunachal Pradesh and Orissa.

3.7       SUBMISSION OF RETURNS

3.7.1    Details regarding the number of establishments covered under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and those submitting returns as well as average daily employment have been presented in Table 6.  In the State sphere response rate was as low as 0.14 per cent with respect of the State of Uttarakhand  and  as high as 97.55 per cent in Manipur.

3.8       INSPECTIONS

3.8.1    The State-wise details of Inspections made, irregularities detected, prosecutions launched and claims preferred have been given in Table 7.

3.8.2    In the State sphere, the highest number of inspections (261808) was conducted in Bihar and highest number of irregularities (60878) was detected in Gujarat. On the other hand the lowest number of inspections (225) as well as irregularities (18) was conducted/observed in Chandigarh and Manipur respectively.  The highest number of prosecutions (4044) were launched in Gujarat  whereas the lowest number of prosecutions were launched in Chandigarh (69).  In the State sphere highest number of claims preferred were  in Bihar (18722).

3.9       ENFORCEMENT OF THE ACT

3.9.1    Mere fixation / revision of wages would not be sufficient unless it is ensured that the workers are paid accordingly. Thus provision of adequate staff is a must for successful implementation of the Minimum Wages Act. However, in most of the States and Union Territories, there was no machinery appointed exclusively for the enforcement of the Minimum Wages Act and the inspection staff appointed under other labour Acts was entrusted with the enforcement of the Minimum Wages Act also.  The Statement showing the strength of the machinery for enforcement of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 during the year 2006 has been given in Annexure- II

3.10     LIMITATIONS OF THE DATA 

3.10.1  The following States/UTs. have not submitted their returns for the year 2006, despite repeated reminders or have submitted defective returns and are therefore excluded.