The government on Monday evaded answers on the alleged denial of minimum wage to construction workers and a delay in increasing the minimum monthly pension of Rs 1,000 under the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS).

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Mohammed Faizal PP had through a written question wanted to know whether over 87 per cent of construction workers were not receiving minimum wages and if the government had any plan to make insurance mandatory for them.

In another written question, DMK MP A. Ganeshmurthi asked if the government had received demands to increase the minimum amount of EPF pension and sought to know if any action had been taken in this regard.

Minister of state for labour Rameswar Teli gave a general answer instead of going into the specific issues.

On minimum wage, Teli said that the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, empowered both the central and the state governments to fix, review and revise the minimum wages in scheduled employments under their jurisdictions. Both governments were responsible for the enforcement of the Payment of Wages Act, providing for the timely payment of wages, and the Minimum Wages Act.

“The designated inspecting officers conduct regular inspections and in the event of detection of any case of non-payment or underpayment of wages/minimum wages, they direct the employers to make payment of the shortfall of wages. In case of non-compliance, penal provisions prescribed under Section 22 of the Minimum Wages Act are taken recourse to,” Teli said.

Hemalata, president of the Construction Workers Federation of India, said workers in the sector largely worked for contractors who did not pay them well.

“The contractors pay them less than the minimum wage. The workers are not organised. They do not complain. There is no inspection by the labour department. The implementation of the law is not done at all,” she said.

Each state is supposed to set up a construction workers' welfare board to provide financial assistance to ailing workers or for the education of their children. However, the board's funds are misused by issuing advertisements and other expenses, she said.

Replying to Ganeshmurthi's question, Teli said representations had been received from stakeholders, including trade unions and public representatives, to increase the minimum pension under the EPS 1995 from the existing Rs 1,000 per month. However, he remained non-committal about increasing the amount.

In the Rajya Sabha, CPI MP Sandosh Kumar P. raised the issue of the delay in the revision of the National Floor Level Minimum Wage. The NFLMW, which is supposed to be revised once in two years, was last revised to Rs 176 per day in 2017. In the last seven years, it should have been revised thrice, but the labour ministry is sitting over it.