Photo: Anu Pushkarna

EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT: Activists of the All-India Students Association holding a demonstration against dilutions in the Employment Guarantee Bill and against Supreme Court ruling scrapping reservation in private unaided colleges, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday.

NEW DELHI: People's Action for Employment Guarantee, spearheading the movement for universal employment, on Wednesday criticised the Government for bringing about amendments to the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) Bill that did not guarantee statutory minimum wages to the workers and dropping the provision of time-bound extension to the whole of rural India.

On the minimum wages provision, lawyer Indira Jaisingh said the bill enabled the Central Government to "override'' State-specific statutory minimum wages, and even the Minimum Wages Act. "This could be challenged in the court as the State cannot be permitted to take advantage of the helpless condition of the affected persons and extract labour or service from them on payment of less than the minimum wages,'' she said, referring to a Supreme Court judgement on Sanjit Roy vs Union of India in 1983 which says that every person who provides labour or service to another is entitled at the least to the minimum wages and if anything less than the minimum wages is paid to him or her, he or she can complain of violation of fundamental right under Article 23. Paying less than the statutory minimum wages falls within the meaning of "forced labour.'' A new clause has also been introduced into the draft that gives powers to the Government to "order stoppage of release of funds'' to the scheme if it was prima facie satisfied that there was any evidence of corruption in the scheme. "The concern about corruption is well taken, but this clause is very dangerous because it gives sweeping powers to the Central Government to stop releasing funds without adequate evidence of corruption. Also, it will drastically undermine the incentives that people (labourers) have to `blow the whistle' in the event of corruption,'' Jean Dreze, member of National Advisory Council, told reporters.

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