Even after SC rap, more than half of the construction cess underutilised in last five years
NEW DELHI: Almost a year after the Supreme Court rapped the labour ministry for non-utilisation of funds generated by the collection of construction cess, more than half of the funds collected since 2014 remain unspent.
As of March 2019, a total of Rs 47,127 crore was collected as construction cess across the country, but only around Rs 19,000 crore has been spent.
Only Kerala has spent more than what it collected as cess. In Kerala, Rs 1,942 crore was collected, while the state spent Rs 2,341 crore for the welfare of construction workers.
Arunachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh followed behind, with expenditure percentages of 95.6 and 83.7, respectively.
In May last year, the apex court, while expressing its displeasure at the unspent funds, had directed the labour ministry to formulate a model welfare scheme for building and other construction workers (BOCW) within six months.
Subsequently, the ministry had formulated a model welfare scheme which had provisions for social security, pension, maternity leave and other benefits for the workers. The draft scheme also had a provision for scholarships for the children of BOCWs.
Some of the lowest spending states include Goa and Gujarat, which have expenditure percentages of 0.008 and 0.09, respectively. In Goa, Rs 147.46 crores was collected as cess, while the expenditure was a mere Rs 1.22 crore. In Gujarat, Rs 2,097.62 crores was collected as cess, but the expenditure was only Rs 197.19 crore.
Ministry officials say states have their own labour laws and hence the expenditure cannot be controlled directly by the Centre.
“Labour is a concurrent subject. We can only direct the states to spend, but how they do it is completely their discretion. We hope that the expenditure will increase in due course of time. Now that the Supreme Court is involved, we expect the welfare of the workers to be expedited,” a ministry official said.