An existing tripartite advisory committee of employers, employees’ unions and state government officials will determine a national-level minimum wage that will be binding on all states after the passage of a draft law, the Centre said on Wednesday.

Labour minister Santosh Gangwar had last week said that the government would table a Code on Wages Bill prescribing a binding minimum wage. He had added that Rs 178 would be the minimum wage.

The labour ministry clarified on Wednesday that the reference was to the national floor-level minimum wage, which is not binding, and not the amount to be fixed under the Code on Wages Bill that will be mandatory.

The floor-level minimum wage is updated every two years, and the next update is due this month. As Gangwar had made no mention of the floor-level wage while addressing a media conference last Wednesday, his announcement had been seen as a reference to the amount to be fixed under the Code on Wages Bill, which all states would have to follow. The amount of Rs 178 is much less than the Rs 375 a day proposed by an expert committee the government had set up.

In response to a clarification sought by The Telegraph on Friday, the labour reforms cell of the labour ministry said on Wednesday that the binding minimum wage would be decided by the tripartite advisory committee that had representatives from trade unions, employers and the state governments.

“It is clarified that 178/176 was in reference to the present context of National Floor Level Minimum Wage. It should not be anyway construed with the minimum wage which the Government intends to fix under the new Code on Wages,” the clarification said. The national floor-level minimum wage had been fixed at Rs 176 in 2017.

The Code on Wages Bill seeks to empower the Centre to prescribe a binding minimum daily wage rate for the entire country. No state can pay less than the stipulated amount.

Currently, the Centre notifies the national floor-level minimum wage every two years as a recommendatory amount. This rate is based on the poverty line estimates prepared in 1970 by the erstwhile Planning Commission.

This newspaper had sought the perspectives of the Union labour ministry and the trade unions, including the RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, on the minister’s announcement.

The trade unions had said Rs 178 was very low and criticised the government for zeroing in on the amount without discussions.

A labour economist said the binding minimum wage would be more than the national floor-level minimum wage. “The tripartite body will discuss the report of the expert committee (that had suggested Rs 375 as the minimum daily wage)…. The wage rate will certainly be much higher than Rs 176,” he said.