The Maharashtra government will come up with a new application to automatically verify whether registered labourers are genuine, state Labour Minister Suresh Khade said on Wednesday. He said the application is being developed in view of complaints from district-level officers that some people have registered themselves as proxy labourers on the websites of the state government.
"Once the new system is in place, this issue will be sorted out,” he told reporters. There are nearly 50 lakh registered labourers in various factories in the state, while the number is 1.5 crore in the unorganised sectors. "Among them, 1.32 crore are born in Maharashtra," he said, adding 17 lakh construction labourers are registered with the department and 4.50 lakh as a house help.
“The labour department's special drive has also helped in registration of some 4 lakh new labourers in the last six months, and 10 per cent of them will be randomly picked up for verification,” he said. Khade also said the state labour department has brought down the registration cost for labourers from Rs 25 to Rs 1.
"We are accepting Rs 1 from labourers so that we get details of their bank accounts. This data is useful when it comes to extending some benefits directly to labourers," Khade added.
(Published 08 February 2023, 13:29 IST)
JOIN US