Delhi construction workers' woes continue despite uptick in registration

Delhi construction workers welfare board has registered around 6,400% increase in registrations but many remain aloof

It was March 2020, when Rachna Devi, a construction worker, was finally happy that a government had done something for low-income people like her. The reason — Rs 5,000 Covid relief announced by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
 
But her happiness was short-lived, she said, adding, “For the first time in my life I was desperately looking to the government for help and that too was denied to me because I was not registered as a construction worker.”
 
Devi is not alone in being denied government benefits in the absence of proper registration with the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (DBOCWWB). During the Covid-19 pandemic, of the 1 million construction workers, according to the Board’s estimate (January 2019), only 3.96 per cent (39,600) received two instalments of ex-gratia relief payment of Rs 5,000 as of May 12, 2020, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s (CAG’s) “Revenue, Economic, Social, General Sectors and PSUs” report for the year ended March 31, 2019, published on July 5. (The report, though for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2019, has the figure for May 12, 2020.)
 
The CAG report states among Delhi’s 1 million construction workers, only 1.7 per cent (17,339) were registered with the Board as of March 2019. The non-availability of registration certificates with the Board (commonly called labour card) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of workers losing government benefits over the years. The Board, from its inception in 2002 till 2019, received Rs 3,273.64 crore as cess, interest earned on the cess, and registration fee. However, in the same period, it spent only 5.59 per cent, Rs 182.88 crore, on welfare schemes.
 
In fact, the irregularities in the official records prompted Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the labour department portfolio, to suspend four officials during a surprise inspection on Thursday, the Delhi government said in a statement.
 
The change
 
Much has changed since Covid came. The Aam Aadmi Party-ruled Delhi government launched a drive in February 2021 to register construction workers with the Board. In the past three years (2019-22), the number of registrations increased from 17,339 to 1.1 million (11,19,795) as of July 20, an increase of a little more than 6,358 per cent. The Board also spent Rs 610 crore of the Rs 655 core it received in the 2019-22 period.
 
The increase in spending is due to the government’s decision to give Rs 5,000 during the Covid wave and pollution subsistence assistance to construction workers when construction activities were banned in Delhi, given the high pollution levels. Over Rs 553 crore were spent on these schemes.
 
Harshil Sharma, research consultant, DBOCWWB, said the increase in registration and spending was due to reforms like online registration, self-declaration forms, camps at construction sites, and reduction in documents required for claims. “Political will and easing of the process have made this possible,” he said.
 
Though the government has increased the number of registrations and spending, the jump in registrations has surprised construction workers’ unions and activists, who say it is due to the illegal registrations of non-construction workers.
 
Thaneshwar Dayal Adigaur, secretary, Delhi Asangathit Nirman Mazdoor Union, and member of the DBOCWWB advisory committee, said online registration and the use of self-attested applications to prove credentials, instead of having a labour union or labour officer’s certification, had raised the number of registrations but the move also increased the chances of non-construction workers getting registered easily in the absence of physical verification.
 
 “Registrations have increased but it is not the construction workers who are getting the benefits. The number of registrations has crossed the number of construction workers present in Delhi,” Adigaur said.
 
According to estimates of the recent Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2019-20, there are around 1.1 million construction workers working in Delhi.
 
However, Sharma said the increase was due to the cyclical nature of migration among construction workers.
 
“Touts/cyber cafe owners are also charging people in lieu of providing them a labour card without checking their credentials.”
 
On the question of non-construction workers being registered with the Board, S C Yadav, additional labour commissioner, Delhi, said: “Legal action will be taken if somebody is found having a card without being in the construction sector.”
 
The lacuna
 
Though the Delhi government has made the registration process digital, many workers do not know of the initiative. At 10 construction sites Business Standard visited, no construction worker had a labour card.
 
The Board has 14 welfare schemes for such workers related to health, pension, maternity leave, education, accidents, death, etc.
 
Dharam, a construction worker for 40 years and now a contractor, still doesn’t have a labour card. “I tried for a labour card when I was a labourer but never got one.”
 
Dharma employs around 30 people to construct a four-floor house in Tivoli Garden in Chattarpur but none of his workers has a labour card.
 
“I myself am not a registered contractor. How can I get a labour card for them,” he said, adding, “registration is difficult for us. Only big companies have registration. The rest of the construction industry in Delhi is working without registration.”
 
Explaining the government’s efforts in making the registration process easy, Yadav said: “The whole process is online, now the employers should take the responsibility of registering everybody. So every construction worker can avail herself or himself of the benefit of the scheme.”
 
On the Board’s efforts to weed out non-construction workers, Sharma said: “We are sending SMSs to registered workers. If anyone is found to have a labour card without being a construction worker, legal action would be taken.”
 
Sharma added: “Today if one worker is registered in UP, she/he cannot register in Delhi. So, there should be a national level repository so that their data could move from one board to another as they move.”
 

 

Helping Hand

• 1,18,256: number of beneficiaries given Rs 10, 000 ex-gratia in first covid wave; Total spending 118 cr
   
• 3,13,452: number of beneficiaries given Rs  5,000 ex-gratia in second covid wave; Total spending 155 cr
   
• 5,75,753: number of beneficiaries given Rs 5,000 pollution subsistence assistance; Total spending 280 cr
   
• 2,440: number of beneficiaries of different welfare schemes of Construction Board in FY22; Total spending 13 cr
   
• 15,791: number of children beneficiaries of scholarship; Total spending 12 cr

 
Source: DBOCWWD