BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Government has notified that the Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess will now be collected at the rate of 1 per cent of the project cost on all types of buildings, including individual residences.
The cess will be applicable for projects with a cost of `10 lakh and more, excluding the land and registration cost.
The Housing and Urban Development department issued the notification on Tuesday as per the provision of Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service Rules, 2002.
The development authorities, special planning bodies, regional improvement trusts and urban local bodies which are entrusted with the responsibility of issuing building plan approvals will collect the cess.
However, the applicant will not have to pay it separately wherever the authorities have a provision of security deposit at the rate of 1.5 per cent of the project cost. The cess will be automatically deducted from the deposit during issue of occupancy certificate or on expiry of validity of the approvals, the notification said.
Planning bodies, where the provision of security deposit does not exist or it is less than 1 per cent of the project cost, the applicants would have to deposit the cess during approval of building plans.
The cess would be transferred to Labour and ESI department after issue of occupancy certificate or after expiry of validity period of the building plan. In cases where the building is not constructed and the applicant does not seek renewal, the amount deposited would be refunded, but without any interest.
The State Government first imposed the cess on commercial and industrial projects in a bid to raise a corpus for the welfare of construction workers.