Gangwar for special drive to foster workers' registration

New Delhi: Calling for a special drive for increasing the registration and to streamlining welfare benefit delivery mechanism, Union Minister for Labour and Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar has emphasised on making a model scheme to ensure benefits to all building and other construction (BoC) workers.

"It's a matter of great concern that out of more than 5 crore workers in the construction and building sector only 2.86 crore have been registered so far," Gangwar said while stressing on developing a mechanism for the welfare of construction workers.

The minister also said that Supreme Court had expressed concern over the cess fund lying unutilised with the states and have passed directions to register all the BOC workers and fully utilise the fund for their welfare.

"States and other stakeholders have been asked to make use of recently launched national portal to facilitate registration of BOC workers," the minister said while addressing a national conference on building and other construction workers

Present on the occasion, Labour Secretary UP Singh said that that it has come to notice that registration of BOC workers, belonging to other states, is generally discouraged and that welfare benefits are not portable across the states which may be the major reason behind the poor utilisation of cess fund.

The Secretary asked the states to maximise registration, facilitate registration of migrant BOC workers and

utilise cess funds to ensure social security benefits to the workers as stipulated under the Act and as underlined by the Supreme Court in its judgement.