Congress accuses Modi government of manipulating rural wage data through methodology change
The Congress party on Monday alleged that the central government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is 'doctoring' rural wage figures by altering the methodology used to calculate them, thereby creating a false impression of a wage boom.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh claimed that the government, through the Labour Bureau, changed the sampling framework for wage data collection without any public disclosure. According to Ramesh, the new framework brought in workers from several northeastern states, the National Capital Territory of Delhi, and Goa into the sample pool, even though these regions account for only 1.2% of India's workforce but now constitute 11% of the total sample.
'Their average wages run 50-55% above the old sample because newly added regions have far less agricultural employment and more higher-skilled workforces,' Ramesh said in a post on social media platform X. He argued that the reported annual rural wage growth jumped from 6% to 17-18% between June 2025 and March 2026, with average daily wages spiking 12.7% in a single month, solely due to the methodological change.
Ramesh further claimed that a genuine analysis of wage data would show real growth of around 4.3% per annum, which he termed the weakest in four years. He linked this to a broader economic slowdown, saying the stagnation in real wages has weakened consumption growth and deterred private investment.
The Congress leader also referenced a previous allegation from 2024, when the party claimed that the government, through the Reserve Bank of India, had changed the definition of employment to show a boom in job creation. Ramesh alleged that RBI leadership was later given 'plum postings' in the Modi government as a reward.
The central government has not yet issued a response to the latest allegations. The Labour Bureau, which collects and publishes wage data, typically releases reports without detailed methodological notes. Critics have previously called for greater transparency in how India's official statistics are compiled.
