The notification covers an estimated two crore workers across 100 scheduled employment, including 18 added in recent years.
| Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO
In what is expected to bring cheer to a large workforce in scheduled employment across the State, the Karnataka government on Friday notified minimum wages, proposing the monthly range from ₹19,319.36 for unskilled labourers in zone 3 to a maximum of ₹34,225.42 for highly skilled employees in thermal stations.
Across industries in zone 1, the proposed monthly minimum wage for a highly skilled worker is ₹31,114.02.
The proposed hike in the draft notification from the Labour Department is a huge 70% increase from the existing wages, including variable dearness wages, and it comes at a time when price rise has affected lakhs of families.
The notification covers an estimated two crore workers across 100 scheduled employment, including 18 added in recent years, and is based on the Supreme Court’s directive in the Rapticos Brett case.
The wage revision is mandated at least once in five years under the Minimum Wages Act. The last wage revision was carried out by the BJP government in 2022, which implemented a wage increase of 5% to 10% across 34 scheduled employment.
The draft notification issued on Friday has withdrawn the 2022 notification and proposed a fresh draft.
The draft has been published seeking objections if any, and will later be placed before the Minimum Wages Advisory Board – a tripartite platform bringing employers, representatives of employees and government officials together- before a final notification is issued. The whole process is expected to take at least three months before the wage rise is finally notified.
Back to three zones
The new notification reverts to three zones from the existing four zones classification for wage calculations. The fourth zone added in the last revision had brought anomalies, in some cases bringing down the wages. While zone 1 covers the BBMP area, zone 2 will cover the district headquarters and other city corporations, and zone 3 will cover the rest of the areas in the State. For the first time, the minimum wage revision across all scheduled employment has been done in a single notification, as sought by trade unions.
Welcoming the notification, the AITUC Karnataka unit secretary M. Satyanand said that the Congress government had implemented a long-standing demand to scientifically calculate minimum wages based on the Rapticos Brett case. “This comes at a time when the labour force has been under stress for the past five to six inflation years.”
To be challenged
Meanwhile, the president of the Karnataka Employers’ Association B.C. Prabhakar said that they will file an objection to the draft notification and legally challenge it later. “The proposed steep hike makes Karnataka’s minimum wages the highest in the country, beating Delhi. This may be counterproductive, increasing the cost of production. Some industries could migrate to neighbouring States, where the minimum wages are far lower. The small-scale industries cannot pay high minimum wages. It’s a big hit to labour-intensive industries,” he said.
For those in religious institutions
For the first time, minimum wages have been extended to those working in religious institutions, including temples, Mutts, mosques, churches, gurudwaras, basadis, viharas, Arya Samaj, Theosophical Society, and ISKCON, among others. These are among the 18 new scheduled employment that have been introduced. The others include non-teaching staff in private schools, colleges, and training institutions. The staff in e-commerce companies and courier companies have also been included.
Published – April 11, 2025 11:45 pm IST