What Supreme Court wants government to do for construction workers

The Supreme Court has brought the hammer down on policymakers over the lack of apathy for vulnerable construction workers, which allows their easy exploitation, from both the central and state governments.

Delivering its verdict on a PIL filed by the National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour (NCC-CL), the apex court flayed the state and UT governments for disregarding its directives and central government advices on extending welfare services to the construction workers and their families.

This includes the whole gamut of entitlements from maternity benefits to crèche facilities, to occupational security benefits and healthcare insurance among others, which remain largely inaccessible to the unorganised or informal section of construction workers.

The implementation of the two Acts - the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act and the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Cess Act (both dated 1996), led to the collection of Rs 37,482 crore as cess.

According to the December 2016 affidavit of National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), this is enormously shy of the Rs 70,000 crore which ought to have been collected. Out of the corpus, only a paltry amount of Rs 9,500 crore was used for the purpose of ensuring welfare of the beneficiaries. To add insult to the plight of the targeted beneficiaries, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) told the court that the funds were incidentally being spent on buying laptops and washing machines.

Decrying the lackadaisical approach of the governments, the SC prescribed a need to leverage the use and reach of civil society and NGOs to help implement the welfare provisions for the construction workers.

The court also directed social audit of the funds under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, aligned with the CAG guidelines.

The Supreme Court went on to highlight the fact that out of the estimated 4.5 crore building and construction workers only 2.8 crore have been brought under the purview of the law.

The numbers could still rise as the definition of "other construction", within the remit of the laws, is wide ranging. In the 57-page judgment, the court directed the Union government to legislate a model welfare scheme by September 30.

It could empower these vulnerable workers on the same lines as the formal sector employees who already enjoy such safeguards. This would comprise, inter alia, security schemes, insurance for life and disability cover, pension scheme, old age and retirement benefits etc. Bringing the deprived groups under the umbrella of Employees Pension Fund, and Employees State Insurance Act etc could provide them the much-needed shield against the arrows of multi-dimensional vulnerabilities.

Acting as the custodian of the interests of the underprivileged and underserved families of such workers, the court fixed May 1 as the date to review the time-bound targets for various authorities.

The provisions which stem from the right to dignified living under Article 21 of our hallowed Constitution are a matter of basic rights and not mere sops. This needs to snowball into timely deliverables in terms of implementation by the Union and various state/UT governments. In case that fails to materialise, the much oppressed sections of our society may still fall prey to their susceptible and unfit circumstances.

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