At the public hearing on Monday. (Express photo)
When Gauri (60) got the chance to hold the mic in front of 100-plus construction workers at Ravidas temple in northwest Delhi’s Haiderpur area, she fumbled a bit before posing the question of the day: “What did I do that you stopped giving me my pension of Rs 3,300?” Many in the audience wondered the same.
At the temple complex on Monday, a public hearing was held by the National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour (NCC-CL), where aggrieved workers from across Shalimar Bagh, Bawana, Punjabi Bagh, Dwarka and Vasant Kunj showed up to present their cases in front of Lallan Singh, Joint Labour Commissioner (northwest district). The public hearing happened after a social audit of Shalimar Bagh was done on the implementation of Building and Construction Workers Act, as directed by the Supreme Court.
“We went across bastis in Shalimar Bagh area over 11 days for the audit with four aims: to educate the workers about their entitlement, compare official records with the reality, listen to their grievances, and find construction workers who are eligible for the identity card that comes with benefits,” said Rakshita Swamy, who supported the NCC-CL.
For construction worker Manju from Bawana, the hearing was a chance to ask the joint labour commissioner why her son was not eligible for the scholarship given to him as per the Act.
As labourer after labourer asked Singh what action will be taken, he said, “Within 15 days we will serve legal notices to all unions that have defrauded the construction workers and initiate the due process of apprehending the perpetrators.”
Also present at the public hearing, which went on from 11 am to 4.30 pm, was activist Nikhil Dey of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), who said, “This is a court-ordered pilot audit, and at the public hearing more officer-bearers should have been present… the Government of India and the state government need to show more commitment towards this matter.”
At the hearing, it was decided that the process of accepting applications for registration, renewal and claims that was stopped in the past five months, will be restarted Tuesday; identity cards will be updated by the Boards; enquiry will be initiated against 53 construction-related establishments that were not registered, and therefore not paying cess, within the next 15 days; and a verification will be conducted on September 27 for all claims whose disbursal has been stopped.