The States and the Union Territories seem to be turning a blind eye to the welfare of construction workers, largely unskilled, who have over the years contributed immensely to the real estate boom in the country.
Since 1996, the States and UT administrations are charging a one per cent tax on every construction project beyond Rs10 lakh. This fund has till date generated a whopping Rs25,477.43 crore meant for the welfare, education, health and insurance of construction workers. But in the past two decades, only Rs5,357 crore was utilised for these purposes, leaving a corpus of Rs20,120.15 crore lying idle with the exchequer.
Presenting these figures to the Supreme Court, which had sought details of the cess collected under the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act and its utilisation, an affidavit filed by Union labour Secretary Shankar Aggarwal revealed that the labour Ministry has set up a monitoring committee, which met twice with the concerned officials of each State and UT, and demanded information on registered building and construction workers (BOCW), utilisation of cess fund for their welfare, and measures initiated towards linking the workers with insurance scheme of the State.
In two meetings held by the monitoring committee, out of 36 States and UTs, so far only 23 States and three UTs provided information. While the registration of BOCW increased from 1.5 crore (as on October 16, 2015) to 2.15 crore, the gross underutilisation of cess fund was a worry, for which the Centre has blamed the respective States for not doing enough. On the registration front, the Monitoring Committee observed marked progress by States/UTs of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
As regards utilisation of cess funds, the Committee asked all states/UTs to prepare policy guidelines indicating the expenditure to be incurred on social security and other schemes.
Besides, the Centre has decided to connect all registered BOC workers with the provident fund and health insurance scheme by allotting a Universal Account Number (UAN). This will ensure that workers can avail of EPF and insurance benefits from anywhere in the country based on UAN. Giving figures of workers connected under UAN, the affidavit said, “As on January 12, 2016, the number of workers registered under the head ‘Building and Construction’ is 97,21,519 and the number of UAN allotted is 23,12,531.”
The Centre has told Supreme Court that by March 31 this year, it has asked all States and UTs to register BOC workers.