Despite hike, why Haryana workers are calling for a further rise in minimum wage

However, its request was not accepted when Haryana announced revised minimum wage rates earlier this month, following widespread protests in the state, particularly in the automobile manufacturing hub of Manesar. More than 50 protesting workers, including women, were arrested by the police.

On April 9, Haryana revised its minimum wage, with the last revision having taken place in October 2015. The basic monthly minimum wage for unskilled workers has now been increased to Rs 15,220.71, and the monthly wage for highly skilled workers to Rs 19,42.85. The per-day wage, which would apply for contractual workers, would come in at Rs 582.4 for unskilled workers and Rs 747.14 for highly-skilled workers.

Bhagwan said the hike is far from what workers wanted.

On top of the already low minimum wage workers in the state were receiving, rising costs due to the ongoing war in West Asia — which have also led to a shortage in gas cylinders for several workers — have been an additional burden. Bhagwan said several workers were having to purchase cylinders in the black market at inflated costs, and prices of other everyday items, such as food prices at their usual eating spots, have also gone up. 

How it was calculated

The committee’s calculations through which it arrived at the Rs 23,196 figure, included tracking prices of key nutrients and clothing over the period of a month, along with expenses towards rent, electricity and their children’s education, and medical expenses, among other things. Following is a breakdown:

The above prices are an average of all data collected from Ambala, Bahadurgarh, Hissar, Panipat, Rewari and Sonipat between April 24 and March 25, 2025.

Timeline of workers’ protests

On Monday, protests in Uttar Pradesh’s Noida overflowed into the streets, choking up multiple locations, with some activities of violence and destruction of property also reported, leading to clashes between police and protestors. The demand there is also to increase the minimum wage.

The state government has approved an interim hike of around 21% in minimum wages for workers in Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad. However, CITU has called for minimum wages to be similar across Delhi and the broader National Capital Region. For instance, the minimum wage in Uttar Pradesh for unskilled workers is now Rs 13,690, compared with Rs 15,220.71 for similar workers in Haryana.

Since the start of this year, workers’ protests have been going on across industrial hubs, even before the energy crisis deepened after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the Iran war.

The first such workers’ protest was seen in February in Barauni, an industrial town in Bihar, over the revision of minimum wages and setting of working hours at eight hours a day, along with demands for social security provisions such as provident fund and coverage under the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation.

Similar protests also took place across other refineries, including at Indian Oil Corporation Ltd’s Panipat refinery on February 23, where at least 30,000 contractual workers staged protests demanding better wages and working conditions. The protest in Panipat also turned violent, with angry workers pelting stones at security personnel and vandalising their vehicles.

Days later, on February 27, another protest by 5000 contract workers of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) working at the AM/NS (ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel) project site at Hazira, Surat, turned violent with several policemen sustaining injuries and many vehicles being set on fire.

With the shortages of LPG cylinders that have sent the cost of living higher, protests since March have been reported in industrial areas of Surat, Manesar and Noida.