REPORT ON THE WORKING OF THE MINIMUM WAGES ACT, 1948 FOR

 THE YEAR 2006

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• Present report on the working of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 pertains to the year 2006. 
• Report is based on the  returns received from thirteen States, three Union Territories and CLC (Central) for the year 2006.  The rest of the States/Union Territories either submitted defective returns or did not submit the return at all.
• Gujarat and Kerala were the two States which added one new employment each to the schedule appended to the Act.
• Amongst the States maximum number of scheduled employments (83) were reported from Orissa and the minimum number (12) were reported from Himachal Pradesh.
• In case of Union Territories maximum number of scheduled employments were reported from Chandigarh (48) and the minimum were reported from Andaman & Nicobar Islands (6).
• There exists no uniformity in the wage structure across the various States/Union Territories as some states pay consolidated wages (Basic + Dearness Allowance) and the others report D.A. as a separate component.
• The Range of  wages varies from zero to Rs. 265.20.
• Highest minimum wages are being paid in the scheduled employment “Collection of River Sand and its loading and unloading” by the State of Kerala which stood at (Rs. 337.20) and the least (Rs. 55.00) are being paid in all the scheduled employments in Orissa and Arunachal Pradesh.  In the State of Gujarat the same amount is being paid in scheduled employment of Agarbati.
• Total of 267 different types of scheduled employments were reported where the minimum wage rates have been fixed by the States/Union Territories/CLC.
• The response rate in case of the establishments covered under the Act is as low as 0.14 per cent for Uttarakhand and as high as 97.55 per cent for Manipur.
• The highest number of inspections (2,61,808)  were reported from the state of Bihar and the lowest number were reported from Chandigarh (225).
• The highest number of irregularities were detected in the State of Gujarat (60,878) and the lowest (18) in Manipur.
• The highest number of prosecutions were launched by the State of Gujarat (4044) and the lowest number of prosecutions launched  were reported by Chandigarh (69).