In a letter to the Chief
Minister on the issue, Secretary of the party’s State unit Janardan
Pati said that agriculture was facing a deep crisis in the State for
more than two decades and people engaged in agriculture were leaving to
other States in search of jobs. Agricultural labourers were not
available for agricultural operation and the crisis in agriculture was
increasing by the day.
Millions of youths were also
migrating to other States leading to scarcity of labour force in both
rural and urban areas, Mr. Pati said.
Findings
Referring
to the findings of the recently published NSSO report that said 10 per
cent of people in rural areas of the country lived on less than Rs. 17 a
day, Mr. Pati said the situation is Odisha was worse.
In
southern Odisha, particularly in villages of Nawarangpur and Nuapada
district, the daily wages were between Rs. 60 and Rs. 70. Even under the
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the
government stipulated wages were not given, he alleged.
The
CPI(M) leader pointed out that the minimum wage of Rs. 92.50 in the
State was less than the minimum wages in States such as Gujarat, Bihar,
Jharkhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Goa,
Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chandigarh and Delhi.
While
minimum wages have not been revised in the State, the salaries of
Members of Parliament and legislators had been hiked, and salaries of
the employees of the Central and State government had also increased
through implementation of six pay commission’s recommendation, Mr. Pati
observed, while adding that the only deprived section was the people
working in industry and agriculture.
ILO guidelines
Mentioning
the International Labour Organisation guidelines and the Supreme Court
judgment on minimum wages, Mr. Pati demanded that it was necessary to
take steps to increase the daily minimum wages to Rs. 334 so that the
poorest section of the society could maintain a minimum standard of
living.
(courtesy :The Hindu)
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