The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Centre if it was willing to consider opening its purse strings to pay higher wages to agricultural labourers employed under its flagship job guarantee scheme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). The thought got provoked after the Karnataka High Court on September 23, 2011 ruled that under the Central scheme, the agricultural workers should be entitled to minimum wages fixed by the State Government, in this case being `119 per day in Karnataka. This was not acceptable to the Centre which had capped the daily wages at `100.