With UPA Chairperson, Ms Sonia Gandhi, pushing for increased wages for labourers, the government today came out with a new structure for payment of wages under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) that will be linked to inflation.
According to the revised structure, the wages under MNREGA will go up between 17 and 30 per cent on the base of Rs 100 for the present, a move that will benefit five crore people.
“The revised wages came into effect from January 1 keeping the index in Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the basis,” the Rural Development Minister, Mr C.P. Joshi, said at a hurriedly-called press conference.
The government is ready to meet the additional expense of Rs 3,500 crore that would be incurred on account of the wage revision between January and March, he said.