The non-performance of numerous state welfare boards for informal workers is well documented. The issue has come to focus yet again with the Supreme Court rapping the central and state governments [1] for failing to provide the promised welfare to construction workers. Pulling up the government for failing to comply with its orders of March 13, the Supreme Court asked if ‘this was a joke’ when the government said it had appointed a committee to finalise a timeline to implement the court order. The court also pointed out that the government was sitting on more than Rs. 25,000 crores (3.1bn EUR) that should have been used for the welfare of the ‘poor’, ‘exploited’ construction labourers.

Official information accessed by India Today [2] has revealed the poor disbursal of welfare benefits across the states. Over Rs. 15,000 crores (1.8bn EUR) remain unutilised in the boards due to poor implementation.

Instead of making amends, the central government has announced a moratorium on contribution collection due to excess cash, in a move to ‘ease business’. RIght To Information activist Dinesh Chaddha told India Today, “There are about two crore (20 million) labourers registered with different labour boards in the states and their Rs. 27,000 crores (3.4bn EUR) are lying unutilised. This way, the government owes close to Rs. 10 thousand (125 EUR) to each labourer. In fact, dtates like Goa owe Rs 5 lakh (6,247 EUR) per labourer.”

The pain of this government failure is borne disproportionately by construction workers and other informal labourers. There is no dearth of effective schemes to use this money for the relief and welfare of the workers. From investing in housing to health centres and primary education systems, governments can utilise this corpus to improve the lives of migrant construction workers.

In an article in The Wire [3], Smita Khanijow writes about the travails of women construction workers in dealing with maternity and child care, even as this money that could greatly benefit them sits idle in bank accounts. Highlighting the poor implementation of the welfare schemes, she states “t doesn’t come as a surprise then, that in the last ten years, only 1,552 women construction workers have availed maternity benefits under the Act in Delhi. Given that most women in the construction sector are in the reproductive age group, these numbers reflect the rather poor implementation of welfare schemes meant for women in the sector.”

The Wire

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