People's Democracy

Stop Retrograde Amendment of MNREGA

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued the following statement on July 18, 2012.

THE Polit Bureau of the CPIM) strongly opposes the reported attempt by the central government to amend the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in so far as it provides for only a one-time adherence to minimum wages and a commitment to just provide funds to cover wages up to this extent for all times to come, except for an annual inflation linked revision. This absolves the central government from providing the full financial outlay for meeting the minimum wage payment and will increase the financial burden on state governments for this central programme.

The CPI(M) has for long been demanding the timely payment of minimum wages and regular price indexation under the scheme and the All India Kisan Sabha had got an order for payment of minimum wages and arrears from the Karnataka High Court, which the central government shamelessly opposed through its special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court. This unwillingness of the UPA government to provide minimum wages to the poor demonstrates once again the hollowness of its claim of being with the aam admi. The CPI(M) demands that the words ‘for the first time’ be dropped from the proposed amendment to 6(1) and the proposed amendment to 22(1)(a) be fully dropped.