Ahead of the general elections, the Centre has notified hikes in the range of 3-11% in the daily wages of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) workers for the upcoming financial year.
As per a notification issued by the rural development ministry showed on Wednesday, the new wages will be effective from April 1, 2024.
The rural development ministry had raised MGNREGA wages by 2-10% for FY24. The rural development ministry notified the wage hikes after taking permission from the Election Commission of India.
The states which witnessed the highest wage revisions were Goa, Karnataka and Adhra Pradesh. MGNREGA wages were hiked by 10.6%, 10.4% and 10.3%, respectively in these states. In absolute terms, the wage for workers in Goa stands at Rs 356 per day, and in Karnataka and Andhra stand at Rs 349 per day and Rs 300 per day.
On the other hand, states that recorded the lowest hike in MGNREGA wages are Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Uttarakhand, both 3%, and Kerala at 3.9%. UP and Uttrakhand workers’ wages, in absolute terms, stand at Rs 237 per day, while the wage in Kerala stands at Rs 346 per day.
Sikkim is the state with the highest MGNREGA wage – Rs 374 per day. But this wage is only for three gram panchayats, named Gnathang, Lachung and Lachen; for the rest of the state, the wage stands at Rs 249 per day.
Meanwhile, the states with the lowest wage are Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. Both the states have been notified a daily wage rate of Rs 234.
The wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) are determined according to fluctuations in the CPI-AL (Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labor), which mirrors inflation trends in rural regions.
In February, a parliamentary standing committee had told the parliament that the daily wages paid under the MGNREGA are “inadequate and not in consonance with the rising cost of living”. It had said this may be one of the reasons for dearth of workers under the scheme.
The panel had also quoted a report of the Anoop Satpathy Committee – a central government committee on minimum wages – which had recommended that the wages under MGNREGA should be Rs 375 per day.