Free bus travel, group life insurance and transit hostels — these are some of the facilities the Delhi government will extend to the 13 lakh registered construction workers in the national capital.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal chaired a high-level meeting with the Labour Department on Monday to review the functioning of the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board.
Kejriwal said that even though 13 lakh construction workers are registered with the board, it has not developed any mechanism to verify their existence and reach out to them.
“If the department is extending the benefit of these schemes to barely 400-500 people…, there is no point in running this department itself. If the department has Rs 3,000-4,000 crore lying with it, then it must extend the benefit of its schemes to all 13 lakh workers. There can be no compromise with the welfare of our workforce,” he said.
He also directed officials to conduct a proper exercise along with Revenue Department teams to verify the registered workers by June this year.
He also directed them to find out and submit the number of registered workers aged above 60 within one week, so the benefit of pension can be extended to them.
“Start reaching out to all registered workers on their phones. The cost of sending SMS and IVRS messages to all the workers on their phones would be much lesser than running TV and radio campaigns and it will be much more effective,” he said.
The chief minister further instructed the officials to immediately work on an action plan to implement an awareness campaign.
The chief minister directed the Labour Department to provide free bus passes and group life insurance to the registered workers. The government has also announced subsidised housing for construction workers in Delhi and will also provide transit hostels to migrant labourers working in the city.