The union government Tuesday asked all states to dip into the ₹52,000 crore Construction Cess fund to give financial and allied benefits to the construction workers through direct benefit transfer (DBT). The central advise comes as Corona outbreak spreads and the country is facing an unprecedented lockdown hampering livelihood of millions of informal workers.
The union labour minister’s letter to chief ministers comes a day after the labour secretary wrote to state chief secretaries to ensure protection of jobs and wages of workers in private and government firms, and amid a global pandemic that International Laboiur Organisation (ILO) feels has the potential to erode 25 million jobs worldwide.
Labour minister Santosh Gangwar in his letter to the chief ministers and Lt Governors advises them “to transfer funds in the account of construction workers through DBT (direct benefit of transfer) mode from the Cess fund collected by the Labour Welfare Boards under the Building and other construction workers (regulation of employment and condition of Services) Act”.
At present 35 million workers are registered under the Construction welfare Boards and around Rs52,000 crore of corpus are there with all fund collcted and managed by the state government, the labour ministry said. States and UTs charge a certain amount from real estate developers as per rules notified by the centre.
Underlining the financial constraints the informal sector workers are facing following the Corona outbreak, Gangwar has written that “it is imperative that we devise probable mechanism to support out unorganized workers, who sustain their livelihood on daily wages,”. Mint has seen a copy of the letter.
“The states and UTs have collected sufficient funds…the amount to be granted to the construction workers may be decided by the respective state governments/UTs,” the minister has written, adding that “the financial assistance at this point of time would help to mitigate the financial crisis of our construction workers to some extent and boost their morale to deal with the epidemic.”
The labour minister’s letter comes close on the heels of the labour secretary writing to state chief secretaries and the union heavy industry ministry to protect the wages and jobs of the workers employed in both private and public sectors.
“In the backdrop of such a challenging situation, all the employers of public and private enterprises may be advised to extend their cooperation by not terminating their employees, particularly casual or contractual workers from job or reduce their wages. If any worker takes leave, he should be deemed on duty without any consequential deduction on wages for this period. Further, if the place of employment is to be made non-operational due to Covid- 19, the employees of such units, will be deemed to be on duty,” the labour secretary has written to the state chief secretaries.
With a near universal lockdown, the construction activity has come to a grinding halt and daily wagers employed in that sector have no source of livelihood. India layered labour market comprises of over 470million people and every year an estimated 12 million enter the job market afresh. Of the total labour force more than 90% are in the informal sector.
A higher unemployment rate due to economic slowdown in the recent past in India, and the present pandemic has been hitting hard the working class. Last week, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) had predicted that 25 million jobs could be lost worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, but an internationally coordinated policy response can help lower the impact on global unemployment.
