The Tamil Nadu Farmers and Workers Party has appealed to the State government to ensure that the builders provide legal compensation to the kin of deceased workers.
Party president and former head of State Construction Workers Welfare Board, Pon Kumar, said: “The government should take legal recourse and ensure that the workers receive due compensation as their right under law. Under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979, the company is bound to provide a booklet with details of benefits due to migrant workers, but that is never done.”
Pointing out that the Andhra Pradesh government had announced a compensation of Rs. 5 lakh for the families of the dead workers, he said the State government should raise the compensation to Rs. 10 lakh for Tamil workers who had died in the building collapse.
“We did a study and found that 90 per cent of labourers in construction sites in the State are migrant workers. Companies exploit them by extracting 12-hour shifts and pay them nearly half the wages that they pay local workers. As the migrant workers are not aware of their rights they often forgo compensations too,” he added.
