Jharkhand's MNREGA labourers return Modi's 5 wage hike

Ranchi: "Dear Prime Minister, we feel that you need the extra Rs 5 more than we do since your government has so many expenses. To implement the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, you will have to spend at least an additional Rs 1 lakh crore on salaries and pensions of government employees. Defence expenditure is about Rs 2.5 lakh crore. You must also be spending a lot of money on tax concessions for big companies, aside from giving them cheap land and other resources.Considering all this, we, NREGA workers, have made a collective decision to give up our extra wages for a day and return the extra five rupees to you. We hope this will help you to keep your corporate friends and government employees happy."
With this sarcastic remarks in a cover letter, hundreds of NREGA labourers from Jharkhand returned Rs 5 to the Prime Minister on the occasion of International Labour Day as a mark of protest for the meagre increase in NREGA wages, which is far below the minimum daily wages paid to labourers in Jharkhand.
The protest campaign was organised at Manika Block of Latehar district under the aegis of Grameen Swaraj Mazdoor Sangh (GSMZ), an organization of local rural workers who have expressed their resentment against the increase of a meagre Rs 5 in the labour rate from the previous year. The government had increased NREGA wages from Rs 158 to Rs 162 in the year 2014-15 and now it has been increased to from Rs 162 to Rs 167 per day.