NEW DELHI: The Delhi government will launch a 15-day ‘Niraman Mazdoor Registration Abhiyan’ from Monday.
Camps will be set up across all assembly constituencies to help construction workers get registered for a welfare fund.
Online registrations will be held for workers who approach these camps and Aam Aadmi Party MLAs have been given the responsibility to find eligible candidates.
The Delhi government over the last two months has registered 70,000 construction workers but as per estimates, there are more than 5 lakh daily wagers in the capital.
“In a bid to expand registration procedure of construction workers the government from August 24 to September 11 will hold a mega campaign - ‘Niraman Mazdoor Registration Abhiyan’ for the registration of construction labourers.
"During the campaign, registration process will take place from Monday to Friday,” said the state Labour Minister Gopal Rai.
Till now, the process of registration of workers involved the construction labourers filling the registration forms from local cyber cafes and then visiting the Delhi government offices for verification.
Every assembly constituency will have one camp for the registration of construction labourers. These camps will be set up at schools.
“This step by the government is welcomed but there is still a huge challenge of manpower crunch with the labour department and the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board.
"It remains to be seen how much of this can actually be implemented,” said Sunil Aledia, executive director of Centre for Holistic Development (CHD), an NGO which has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court over the registration of construction workers by the Delhi government.
HC directive to seek lawyers’ help
The Delhi High Court had recently directed the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, which comes under the state labour department, to take help from 100 Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) lawyers to help them out just with the verification procedure of the applications
already submitted.