Proposal on common wage shot down by PM

Finance minister P Chidambaram's suggestion that there be a common minimum wage of Rs 60 for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) applicable across the country, was shot down today at a meeting with Prime Minister Manmoahn Singh.

The meeting was also attended by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Minister for Rural Development Raghuvansh Prasad Singh.

According to top sources in the government, the meeting was already slated to be stormy one with Singh definitely not in favour of the move, and the Left parties and National Advisory Council (NAC) having expressed their reservations about the scheme.

Sources confirmed that it was the combined might of Singh and Mukherjee that resulted in the move being shot down. "They argued that the status quo of giving out state minimum wage for NREGA, like in all other centrally and state sponsored social programmes, be maintained," said a top official.

The minimum wage, according to finance ministry sources, was being put forward as a way out for accounting difficulties with the programme. "There are too many variations in wages across the states and the number of people availing the programme, which is why the common wage was proposed," said an official.

Singh, however, had been opposed to it not just for the states which have a minimum wage lower that Rs 60, but also states like Kerala where the wage is Rs 136. "Here, the people will obviously find the wage not in consonance with the cost of living," he reportedly said.

A fuming Singh reportedly told the finance minister that accounting difficulties could not be held more important than the success of the programme which "was being observed by the world."