[India] Over 42 percent agricultural labourers still below poverty line

from Web india

Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Chandra Sekhar Sahu today said that according to the information received from the Planning Commission, 42.13 per cent of agricultural labourers still live below the poverty line.

In a reply to a question asked in the Rajya Sabha, Sahu said that the rates of minimum wages for unskilled agricultural labourers ranged between rupees 102.78 to rupees 114.78 as per the Central Minimum Wages Act, 1948. However, the wages as per the state spheres has much greater variations as it ranges from Rs. 45 in Pondicherry to Rs. 125.80 in Delhi.

As per the National Sample Survey Organisation, over 80 per cent of the poor in the country belong to socially-disadvantaged groups such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes.

The composition of the poor has also been changing as rural poverty is now increasingly concentrated in the agricultural labour and artisan households.

Despite over half a century of effort by the Government, it is still growing and has acquired new proportion in the states of Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The share of these four States in Indias rural poor rose from 53 per cent in 1993-94 to 61 per cent in 1999-2000.

The minister also outlined that while employment is seen growing in the unorganised sector it is continuously shrinking in the organised sector.

Highlighting that the unemployment situation is not turning into a grave situation, Sahu said that a growth of labour force (1.03 per cent per annum) was marginally more than growth of employment (0.9 per cent per annum) during 1993-94 to 1999-2000.

Emphasizing that the Tenth Plan focuses on providing gainful high quality employment and the additions to the labour force, Sahu said that importance is being laid on rapid growth of those sectors which are likely to create high quality employment opportunities and deal with those policy constraints which discourage growth of employment.