Coronavirus | Labour Minister asks CMs to release construction worker welfare funds

Directly release funds into their accounts to mitigate financial crisis, says Gangwar

March 24, 2020 03:36 pm | Updated June 09, 2020 07:57 pm IST - New Delhi

Under Section 60 of the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Act, 1996, all states/UTs have been advised to transfer funds in the account of construction workers through direct benefit transfer mode. | Representational image

Under Section 60 of the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Act, 1996, all states/UTs have been advised to transfer funds in the account of construction workers through direct benefit transfer mode. | Representational image

Union Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar on Tuesday wrote to all Chief Ministers and Lieutenant-Governors asking them to directly release funds into the accounts of construction workers using the cess collected by their respective Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Boards.

The Minister wrote that the government was taking various measures to provide relief to workers in view of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. For construction workers, who tend to rely on daily wages, the government issued the advisory to all States and Union Territories to use the cess fund, a statement from the Ministry said. The Ministry said about 3.5 crore construction workers were registered with the State boards and about Rs. 52,000 crore was available to the boards in the form of cess collected over the years.

In his letter, Mr. Gangwar said each State or Union Territory could decide the amount of payment to be made to the workers. “The financial assistance at this point of time would help to mitigate the financial crisis of our construction workers to some extent and boost their morale to deal with this epidemic,” the Minister wrote.

Starting Sunday, large parts of the country have been placed under lockdown to slow down the spread of the coronavirus till March 31, leading to construction activity being hit as well.

Top News Today

Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.