Title: Agricultural Wages in India.
Source: Authorities reporting wages of agricultural labour in different States.
Wages:
This series is not published in the Bulletin.
The Economic and Statistical Adviser, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture.
Geographical: Selected villages in districts of certain States. All districts are normally covered but at least one in every five is to be selected within States. In ILO publications, the data cover Maharashtra State only.
Industrial: The data from this series cover agriculture only.
Occupational: The following occupations are covered, classified according to the nature of the work performed: skilled labourers (carpenters, blacksmiths, cobblers), field labourers (ploughmen, sowers, reapers, harvesters, weeders, transplanters), other agricultural labourers (watering coolies, carriers, welldiggers etc.) and herdsmen.
Establishments: Not applicable.
Persons covered: Ordinary skilled labourers (men) and unskilled casual labourers (men, women and children) employed on daily wage rates and paid either in cash or in kind.
The series is monthly and started in 1950.
Employment: Not applicable.
Hours of work: Normal hours of work are fixed at eight hours per day. These data are not collected by the ILO.
Wages: Average daily wage rates in cash or in kind, for different categories of workers and depending on the nature of the work. In ILO publications data refer to unskilled wage earners (i.e. field labourers) in Maharashtra State.
The whole month.
Data on agricultural wages are not collected in most States. In each reporting State, however, data for each month are collected for selected villages by primary reporting agencies and should be sent to district headquarters by the 2nd of the following month. Next the information is transmitted to the State headquarters where it is scrutinised and consolidated and sent to the Ministry of Agriculture for processing approximately by the end of the second week of that month. The State governments may choose their local collection agents (local Panchayat Board presidents, primary school teachers, etc). No evaluation or adjustments are made to the data.
No revisions of definition have taken place. Some changes in the selection of centres (villages) have been made by the reporting agencies depending upon varying local conditions.
Ministry of Agriculture, Directorate of Economics and Statistics: "Agricultural Wages in India 1984 - 1985" (annual) (New Delhi, November 1986).