SC pulls up govt over no benefits

The Supreme Court on Monday expressed serious concern that despite ` 37,000 crores with the Centre and states, construction workers, who are part of nation building process, are denied various benefits due to them.

A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta passing orders on a petition filed by National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour ( NCCCL) said, “What makes the situation even worse is that many of the construction workers are believed to be women and at least some of them have small children to look after.”

Justice Lokur said “We were informed that the collection of cess in the country had increased and had exceeded ` 37,000 crores as on 30th June, 2017. The overall expenditure had also increased from about ` 5371 crores to about ` 9,491 crores again as on June 30, 2017. We were also informed that schemes had been prepared for the benefit of construction workers and a national online portal was under construction which could be used by NGOs, perhaps to monitor the implementation of the statutes that we are concerned with.”

The Supreme Court Bench said that even they are victims of official apathy and that it truly reflects a very sad state of affairs, and the loss already caused to them and other construction workers cannot be remedied.

The reason for this is that it is not known which construction worker is entitled to get how much in terms of money or what benefit and under which scheme.

Some of these construction workers from the 1990s and even later, may perhaps have unfortunately passed away or might be untraceable or old enough to deserve a pension.