CM’s wage hike call upsets AAP trade wing

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s announcement on Independence Day to increase minimum wages by nearly 50 per cent for the capital’s workforce has reportedly not gone well with the AAP’s trade wing, which has said that any such move would force the industrial units to shift their base outside Delhi. Once the city Cabinet takes a call on the matter on Wednesday, the traders’ unit will announce its future course of action. If the minimum wages are revised by the Cabinet, the same will be sent to lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung for final approval.

A delegation of the traders’ wing led by its president Ashok Khandelwal, on Tuesday, met deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and labour minister Gopal Rai to apprise them about the drawbacks of any such move. Earlier, a 13-member committee appointed by Mr Rai had recommended a 40 per cent hike in minimum wages.

AAP traders’ unit convenor Brajesh Goyal said that the minimum wages being paid in Delhi were already 30 per cent more than in other states. “If the government still goes for hike in minimum wages, we will have no other option but to go for Delhi bandh. We will decide our future course of action only after city Cabinet takes a final call on the matter.”

Underscoring his government’s push for economic parity to counter the growing rich-poor divide, Mr Kejriwal had on Monday urged his counterparts and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revise wages across India, saying that “policies that take care of only the super-rich, won’t work” and that governments should take care of the poor.

The government’s proposal is to raise minimum monthly wage of an unskilled person from Rs 9,568 to Rs 14,052. Besides, wages of semi-skilled and skilled people will increase from Rs 10,582 to Rs 15,471 and from Rs 11,622 to Rs 17,033. In an industrial unit, a mech-anic and welder is classified as skilled worker, his helper is semi-skilled while an ordinary labourer falls under unskilled category.

Once a decision is taken on the matter, all commercial establishments and industry under the Delhi Shops and Establishment Act, 1954, will have to implement the revised rates.