The Indian National Trade Union Congress has come down on Bharatiya Janata Party`s government in Rajasthan for paying sub-minimum wages to workers in the rural areas by indulging in its own interpretation of the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act and also by following its own system of payment of wages.

The Minimum Wages Act has been in force since 1948 as a statutory protection for the unorganised workers. The intent of the enactment is to ensure at least a subsistence earnings for the impoverished workers who do not have benefits like medi-care, social security etc, enjoyed by their counterparts in the organised sector.

In January, 1995, the Rajasthan government came out with a notification fixing the minimum wages of various categories of workers in the state. Surprisingly, the workers engaged in various famine relief schemes have once again been left high and dry without inclusion in the schedule in respect of fixation of minimum wages. Secondly, the minimum wage of workers employed in the works under Jawahar Rojgar Yojna is fixed at a paltry Rs. 14 per day by terming it as `guaranteed time wage`, as against the wage ofRs.32 per day for other workers in the state.

The INTUC`s working committee which had mat recently at Jammu, exposed this policy in a resolution. According to the resolution, non-inclusion of famine workers in the schedule went against the Supreme Court`s earlier ruling that the famine workers cannot be treated as a separate category of workers in fixing minimum wages. It is also illegal to make a category of` time wage`, because the Act allows for the payment of wages on a time rate or piece rate basis.

The Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee at the instance of Mazdoor Kisan Sangathan, an organisation of peasants and workers in Rajasthan, has decided to file a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking relief from the misuse of the legislation. Other reliefs that will be sought are linking the minimum wage to consumer price index, six-monthly revision of the wages and a statutory national minimum wage. The other trade unions are planning to become parties to the writ petition.