Minimum Wages Act and Dearness Allowance
When any industrial employment, whether in the private or public sector, is brought under the Schedule of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, and the appropriate government concerned fixes minimum wages by factoring in dearness allowance as a component of wages for that employment, it becomes mandatory that the sum total of wages payable shall not fall below the sum total of the statutory minimum wages inclusive of the dearness allowance. This allowance is linked to some Cost of Living Index and thus assumes a variable character.