Factories fined Rs150,000 in ICT for not complying with minimum wage act

Islamabad: The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration has imposed a fine of Rs150,000 on some factories operating in the federal capital over noncompliance of minimum wage act.

The Director Industries and Labour along with his team inspected five factories and one petrol pump in Kahuta Industrial Triangle area, an official source in ICT told this agency on Sunday.

To implement of orders in industrial sector, he said, the department had constituted 5 inspection teams to ensure provision of fixed wages to the industrial workers besides to educate the entities about the fixed salary of labours.

The ICT administration, he said, would launch an awareness campaign for educating informal sector’s skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled and juvenile workers about their fixed minimum daily wages. To a query, he said five teams were more than enough as 95 per cent industries were located in Sector I-9 only.

The teams were paying visit to every factory and shop to check whether the workers were being paid according to the salary fixed by the administration, adding that prompt action was being taken if any complaint was received in that regard.

The official said the administration had addressed around 35,000 complaints of labourers, received through social media and Prime Minister Delivery Unit, during the last year. To another query, he said the departments lacked complete data of informal workers, employed in commercial establishment of the federal capital, which prompted the need to regularize informal employment sector. It may be mentioned that around 0.38 million workers are only registered with EOBI. The capital administration had fixed Rs673 as the daily wage for unskilled and juvenile workers.

Besides, the daily wages for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers had also been fixed at Rs990, Rs770 and Rs675, respectively.

The minimum wage per day (for eight working hours) for adult unskilled workers and juvenile workers employed in industrial undertakings is fixed at Rs673 while the minimum wage per month (for 26 working days) would be Rs17, 500The employers in all industrial and commercial undertakings shall pay to their workers the wages at the rate not less than the minimum wages.

The employers shall, however, be free to pay higher wages either unilaterally on their own initiatives or by collective agreement in view of any special consideration including higher grade or skill or experience or higher cost of living in a particular locality or other reason.