Less than 10% of cess used for building workers' welfare: Study

Less than 10% of the funds collected as construction workers’ welfare cess has been made use of for the welfare of the community until now, a study conducted for the state government by city-based Public Affairs Centre (PAC) has found.

According to the recently published study, between 2009 and 2019, an amount of Rs 356.24 crore was collected as construction welfare cess. Of this, only 6.25% money has been spent.

The study, ‘Welfare Impact of Usage of Construction Workers Welfare Board Cess in Karnataka’, looked into all the 30 districts of the state for secondary data analysis, while focusing on ten districts as sample for primary survey.

It found that construction workers were finding it difficult to register themselves with the department owing to cumbersome processes. While many found it difficult to complete the process without support from others, some said they did not have adequate information about the process. Several workers could not renew their membership as they had problems with their Aadhaar not being linked to their bank accounts.

As for inter-state migrants, about 44% were unable to produce required documents for registration, with another 27% not being able to understand the language to complete the registration process.

In its findings, the PAC also flagged data disparity between what was recorded in the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (KBOCWWB) and the labour department. While the website of the labour department shows that between June 2007 and September 2015, there were 9,07,638 registered construction workers, data from the KBOCWWB shows that there were 21,62,090 construction workers manually registered, including both newly registered and renewals.

That apart, data collected from labour offices of each district adds up to 5,02,891 registered construction workers, it said. Not just that, even when it came to the cess collected, according to numbers from the district offices, the total cess collection for the state was Rs 356.24 crore between 2009 and 2019, whereas the information collected from the Board showed it as Rs 6,015.20 crore.

Speaking to DH, Meena Nair, Head of Research, PAC, stressed the need for more awareness for increasing registrations and for improving efficiency in using the money collected for their welfare. Spending the unspent funds for health and safety of workers, creating helplines and grievance redressal system, conducting awareness drives and developing mechanism to track migrant workers from other states are among the recommendations of the study.