As sponsor of a new Living Wage and Income Benchmark study for India, the Laudes Foundation organized a stakeholder feedback consultation meeting on Monday, October 10, 2022. Participants included stakeholders from the Government of Madhya Pradesh, several civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and members of academia.
The meeting began with a welcome address by Richard and Martha Anker from the Anker Research Institute, followed by a brief introduction to the Regenerative Production Landscape (RPL) Collaborative in Madhya Pradesh. Researchers Kuriakose Mamkoottam and Nidhi Kaicker presented the draft report on the Living Wages and Living Income for rural Madhya Pradesh on behalf of the Anker Research Institute (ARI). The report is based on two studies located in the districts of Chhindwara in southern MP and Ratlam in western MP during October 2021 and December 2021. These districts were chosen to be representative of southern and western MP respectively.
After a brief explanation of living wage and income according to the Anker methodology, the Global Living Wage Coalition (GLWC) and the Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP), Kuriakose and Nidhi shared a summary of the report estimating the living wage and living income for rural Madhya Pradesh. The living income (average of the two study districts) is 2.7 times that of the 2014 national poverty line family income, and 2.2 times the World Bank international poverty line family income. This report demonstrates that families in rural MP earn far less than what is required to afford decent living and that much more work is needed by stakeholders to ensure that workers are receiving a living income.
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