The workers who keep India’s cities running have a simple message – pay us living wages

The protests by workers across Indian cities through early April are an urgent signal that survival is impossible on wages that hover around the bare legal minimum.

Domestic, gig and delivery workers to industrial labourers in the Delhi-National Capital Region protested demanding an increase in wages and overtime pay. Most of them are often migrant workers to India’s urban centres.

The spark was the increase in basic expenses following the shortage of cooking gas and economic uncertainty after the US-Israel launched military strikes on Iran in February, setting off a conflict which is now closing in on two months.

In Noida, protesting workers told the Indian Express that their monthly salaries ranged from Rs 13,000 to Rs 20,000 but expenses had increased, with rent costing Rs 5,000 and food Rs 4,000, and nothing to save. One factory worker in Noida told a news publication that his employer hiked his monthly pay by Rs 39. Worse still, workers report deductions as punishment for protesting and their wage demands were met with batons.

Across urban India, the numbers tell the same story.

Domestic workers manage to earn anywhere between Rs 7,000 - Rs 12,000 a month by working in multiple homes, with no leave or social security in the National Capital Region, says a report in the Hindustan Times. Security guards working at Delhi’s leading hospitals earned between Rs 10,000- Rs 13,000 a month for 12-hour shifts, according to a report in Hans India.

In upscale malls and fast-fashion outlets, retail workers start out by earning Rs 9,000- Rs 13,000, with sales targets that stretch their workday without pay. Delivery and warehouse workers, who form the backbone of “quick commerce”, report earning between Rs 14,000-Rs 18,000 after 10-12 hours of work. Anecdotal evidence suggests that private drivers in NCR average around Rs 15,000-Rs 22,000.

These earnings fall short of the living-wage estimate of Rs 23,086 per month in Delhi-NCR in 2025 by the Anker Research Institute, a nonprofit that researches benchmarks for wages across countries.

At the same time, India’s national floor level minimum wage was last revised in 2017 to Rs 178 a day, which amounts to less than Rs 5,500 per month. The Centre sets the national floor wage as a benchmark to guide states in setting their own minimum wages. Without revisions to reflect increasing costs and inflation, the low minimum wage has practically legalised poor pay and enabled a race to the bottom.

Aajeevika’s study, carried out between July 2024 and February 2026 in Ahmedabad, shows how low wages are inadequate to sustain a dignified life. The current wage frameworks assume that workers and their dependents form a single household in one location. However, migrants’ realities are “bilocal”: their wages must sustain their life in the city while remittances are essential to support their native villages and homes.

Strained incomes have unsurprising consequences: debt, unhygienic and cramped living conditions and compromising on healthcare and education, which results in children being pulled into work.

The workers’ protests also erupted months after the Centre’s four labour codes came into effect in November 2025. The government has said the four new codes modernise and consolidate India’s labour and worker-related laws. But workers’ rights organisations have warned of a dilution in labour protection and rights.

The same month, amendments to the Uttar Pradesh Factories Act were enforced which allowed the government to extend the workday to 12 hours and raise quarterly overtime limits from 75 to 144 hours. The NCR’s Noida industrial hub comes under the jurisdiction of Uttar Pradesh.

In response to the protests, state governments have marginally revised wages. Uttar Pradesh raised wages for unskilled workers to Rs 13,690, Haryana to Rs 15,221. Both are far below conservative living-wage benchmarks and well short of the Rs 26,000 long demanded by unions. These wage revisions also come after years of inflation, and it is unlikely that they are enough to meet current expenses.

Why businesses must pay more

It might seem profitable to keep wages low, but it is a liability. It sparks frustration and unhappiness among workers, leads to their exit and drives up costs through recruitment and training expenses while lowering service quality.

Stable wages guarantee dignity and lower attrition, while fixed hours reduce errors and fatigue. Predictable hours will reduce defects and returns. Workers who can afford transport show up on time. Those who can eat and sleep well sell better, drive safer, and stay. Paying fair wages is far from a charitable act. Corporations must weigh the costs of increasing wages or grappling with the costs of lost output and other losses.

Setting minimum wages

Faced with labour unrest and the increasing cost of living in expenses in the midst of global economic turmoil, the government must reframe minimum wages to living wages. It must notify a time-bound roadmap to reach city-wise, Anker living-wage benchmarks with annual increases based on inflation. The national floor level minimum wage must also be revised urgently.

Enforcement often becomes the main failure. Here, governments must cap the workday at eight hours, ensure overtime is voluntary and paid at double rates, bring about digital muster rolls and wage slips. Non-payment of wages must become a cognisable offence, which means police can begin investigations and make arrests as the relevant laws.

Wages must also be accompanied by social security nets. Welfare benefits like insurance and provident fund should be portable across states and employers.

Grievance systems should work on the ground: district wage-facilitation cells with a 30-day disposal rule, protection against retaliation, dialogue before detention, and quarterly compliance disclosure. The state must also stop underwriting low wages through its own contracts, by demanding, for instance, Rs 20,000 but paying Rs 13,000 in its tenders.

The workers’ anger is grounded in the desperation of surviving from day to day. Their demands for a minimum of Rs 20,000 per month and overtime are modest given the cost of living in the capital of India.

From factory and industry workers to the labourers who deliver food and groceries and clean homes, it is their sweat and effort that is central to making Indian cities what they are today.

Rajiv Khandelwal is the co-founder and Director of Aajeevika Bureau, a workers’ rights and services organisation supporting migrant and informal workers everywhere.