President Pranab Mukherjee returns Minimum Wages Bill

New Delhi: A bill stipulating steep penalty for violating labour laws in the national capital has been returned to the Delhi Assembly by President Pranab Mukherjee. Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, on Thursday, said that the Bill, that was cleared by the Assembly in December 2015, has been returned for “reconsideration”.

Incidentally, it was returned once before and was sent back to the President with the required changes, labour minister Gopal Rai said.

“We have received a letter from the L-G dated March 8 in which he has apprised me that the President has returned the Minimum Wages (Delhi) Amendment Bill 2015 for reconsideration,” Mr Goel told the House.

The proposed law has recommended imprisonment of up to three years and penalty amounting Rs 50,000 for violators of the Minimum Wages Act.

Under the proposed amendments, companies will also have to upload the data of their employees on their websites in the manner as may be prescribed by the Delhi government.

“The financial condition of the labourers in Delhi is quite bad. Keeping this in mind, minimum wages have been hiked recently. But the biggest problem has been violation of the law and the lack of options to penalise violators. The returning of the Bill is unfortunate. We will sit with the chief minister and work out the details and resend it,” Mr Rai said.