Labour department books SobhaGroup for death of two workers

The state labour department has booked property developers of Sobha Dream Acres for gross negligence and failure to provide basic amenities to their construction workers.

In January, several workers at their construction site in Panathur Road, off the Outer Ring Road in Varthur, fell ill after drinking contaminated water supplied to them by tankers, and two of them had died at the hospital of cholera.

An inspection by the labour department after the incident revealed that Sobha had failed to provide adequate food, drinking water and sanitation to the workers.  

Suresh, a labour department official, said the developers have been booked for violating various labour laws such as provisions of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition)  Act, 1970, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Payment of Wages Act, 1936, Equal Remuneration Act,  1976, Interstate Migrant  Workmen  Act, 1979, and the Building and Other Construction Workers  (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service)  Act, 1996.

The official said the builder did not receive any licence from the deputy commissioner from the place where the labourers were brought to work at the construction site. Sobha also had more workers than it claimed to have used.

Pathetic  conditions    

The official said the labourers were not paid adequately and the builder did not maintain records of payments. The accommodation did not have enough space or ventilation. The rooms were overcrowded and the toilets badly maintained, which was the source of the infection that swept through the labour colony.

The Sobha group had even failed to register the labourers with the Karnataka Building And Other Construction Workers Welfare Board.

While the place had 3,000 labourers, only 1,800 were registered. In fact, the two deceased labourers were among the workers not registered with the board, due to which they could not claim benefits from the board.

Additional Labour Commissioner H L Guruprasad said a compensation of Rs 15 lakh and Rs 11 lakh has been awarded to the deceased workers. He said the case against Sobha was booked 15 days ago.

But Sobha Group, senior general manager, S Narasimhan said his company did not receive any intimation about the department's case.

"We have responded to a notice we received from the labour department. But we are not aware of any case being booked against us," Narasimhan said.