NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Labour and Employment has drafted an action plan for the successful implementation of the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Model Welfare Scheme. Under the plan, a copy of which was accessed by The Sunday Standard, online registration of establishments and workers has been made mandatory.
Ministry officials say the registration was made online so as to ensure that all BOCW get the benefits that they are entitled to. “It is easier to monitor if all the data is available at the click of the mouse. This way, we can ensure all the beneficiaries are reached,” a ministry official said.
The ministry was pulled up by the Supreme Court in March this year over under utilisation of construction cess toward BOCW welfare. The apex court had directed the ministry to draft a model welfare scheme at the earliest and implement it.
With regard to the cess collected, the action plan directs all state governments and labour departments to constitute committees to regularly monitor cess collection. The committees have been directed to use GIS mapping to optimise cess collection. All states have been given time up to December 2018 to file their compliance report with the ministry, the official added.
The action plan also states that officials who do not transfer the collected cess to their respective state authorities would attract a punishment. However, the quantum of punished is not stated in the plan.
Experts are happy about the drafting of the action plan. “It is heartening to see that the government is working at a great pace. It was only in March that they were pulled up by the Supreme Court and now an action plan is ready too. I hope all states send their compliance reports by December so that there are no further firewalls in the implementation of the welfare scheme,” said Surbhi, field coordinator of Nirmana, an NGO.