HYDERABAD: A division bench of Telangana High Court on Monday issued notices to the Chief Secretary, Government of Telangana, Special Chief Secretary, Labour, Employment Training and Factories Department, the Commissioner of Labour and the Commissioner, Printing, Stationery and Stores Purchase, directing them to file counters in a PIL filed by Telangana Regional Trade Union Council, represented by its General Secretary Daggula Satyam, seeking a direction on revised Minimum Wages Act and issue of GO related to the same.
Chikkudu Prabhakar, counsel for the petitioner, said the State government has to fix wages as per the Minimum Wages Act, adopted by the Parliament on March 15, 1948, and then published in the Central Gazette, to scheduled employments and revised minimum rates of wages not later than five years.
The State Advisory Board reviewed a wide range of documents and had discussed a wide range of labour-related issues in numerous meetings. It asked the Commissioner of Labour to submit new proposals to the government at new rates of Rs 14,874 with Rs 1,239 Cost of Living Allowance or Consumer Price Index points in all the scheduled employments, he said.
He further told the court that according to the Telangana State EPF Organisation’s report, there are more than 1.07 crore EPF members who work in schedule employments. The petitioner further argued that while prices for perishable goods and daily necessities such as pulses, rice, oil, and vegetables have increased from 2006 to the present by more than 300% to 500%, the State government has not revised the Minimum Wages, with Adda Cooli (Daily Labor) currently demanding wages of Rs 800 per a day and Skilled Labour (Mason) demanding wages of Rs 1,500 for per a day.
The petitioner argued that failing to publish the Gazette violated the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act and was unlawful, ex-facie, arbitrary, discriminatory, unjust, unfair, unreasonable, and colorable. He urged the court to order the Commissioner of Printing, Stationery, and Stores Purchase to publish the GOs for the 5 Scheduled Employments.
While sending notices to the respondents and instructing them to provide thorough responses within four weeks, the bench of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N Tukaramji posted the matter to June 19 for further hearing.