Ayanur Manjunath, Rajya Sabha member, has underscored the need for properly utilising cess amount collected by the State government for construction workers.
He was speaking after inaugurating a construction workers’ cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party district unit here on Sunday.
At present, the Karnataka Building and other Construction Workers' Welfare Board is collecting 1 per cent of the project cost from the employer as cess.
According to The Building and Other Construction Workers’ Cess Act, 1996, the amount should be utilised to meet the expenses related to education, health and marriage of the family members of the workers.
At present, Rs. 3,800 collected in this regard is lying unutilised with the board. The State government should direct the board to plan welfare programmes for the construction workers with this amount, he said.
He alleged that few fraudsters have floated fake organisations in the name of construction workers and were trying to misuse the welfare funds of the construction workers. The construction workers should be cautious regarding such organisations, he said.
President of the BJP district unit S. Dattatri, party functionaries Palani Kumar, N.G. Satish were present.
