Speed up workers' registration at Games Village, Govt. told

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the Delhi Government to fast-track the ongoing registration of workers at the Commonwealth Games Village sites here and make available all basic facilities to them.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Chief Justice Deepak Misra and Justice Madan B. Lokur passed the direction when counsel for the People's Union for Democratic Rights, petitioner in the matter, submitted that the registration work was very slow so far with only 400 workers registered by the various agencies engaged in it.

Medical care

The Court had earlier this month asked the Government to prepare a register of these workers, open bank accounts in their names and pay their wages through cheques and make available facilities at the work sites for their medical care, for care of their children when they were working and maintain proper sanitation.

The Court had passed these directions after going through a report submitted to it by a panel.

The report said that the construction workers at the Games sites were not getting proper wages and were working in unsafe and unhygienic conditions. It had also faulted the system for payment of wages to them and said it was be prone to abuse.

The Committee said though basic safety gears were issued to these workers at a majority of the sites visited by it, the workers were generally found working without them. The wages, ranging from Rs.300 to Rs.800, of some of those workers who used the safety gears were deducted, the report alleged.

The Court had appointed the panel to probe the working conditions at the Games sites when the petitioner alleged that the workers had been denied of their basic rights and were forced to work in unsafe and unhygienic conditions.