The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has asked the Construction Workers Welfare Board to file a counter affidavit with respect to a public interest litigation petition that sought a direction to the State to provide COVID-19 financial assistance to registered construction workers, irrespective of whether they have renewed their membership or not.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and P. Rajamanickam directed the Welfare Board to file a comprehensive status report in this regard and adjourned the case filed by the Thamizhaga Kattida Thozhilalar Madhiya Sangam to August 24.
Earlier, the court had sought information on the total number of registered construction workers, those who had renewed their membership, those who had not renewed their membership and the online mode of registration. The court wanted to know the efficacy of the online mode of registration for membership to the Welfare Board.
The State government submitted that a total of 18,20,674 construction workers had registered with the Welfare Board out of whom 12,13,882 had renewed their membership and the remaining 6,06,792 workers had not renewed the membership. With regard to online mode of registration, the website was under maintenance, the court was informed.
