Delhi: Workers have to pay bribes to get legal benefits

NEW DELHI:  A social audit of the Building and Other Construction Workers  (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act (BOCW) by an NGO in the national capital could identify only 932 beneficiaries out of the 24,399 registered beneficiaries in the city, apart from finding other discrepancies in its implementation.

“Since there were a lot of discrepancies, the team decided to examine the whole district data on disbursement to reach the required improvements,” the report said. The audit found 15 key discrepancies in the implementation of the Act in the city.The audit found 138 cases of bribes being paid to private individuals for accessing benefits under the Act, and other corrupt practices, such as company officials taking bribes of up to Rs 25,000 to provide construction workers access to benefits.

The Supreme Court, a few months ago, had come down heavily on the labour ministry for not utilising the construction cess collected for the welfare of building and other construction workers. It asked the ministry to draft a welfare scheme for them and conduct social audits regarding the feasibility of the scheme. The social audit was conducted in accordance with the apex court’s ruling.

“We have been forced to pay bribes for a long time to access benefits. Most of us are uneducated and we do not know of the benefits we are entitled to. When we learn of them and approach our supervisor, we are forced to pay bribes to avail them,” said Ram Shankar, a construction worker from Jharkhand.
Nirmana officials agree with Shankar’s statement. 

“Apart from fighting for their rights, we also try our best to educate the workers about their entitlements. We have been marginally successful. We are now devising new strategies to improve the success rate in this aspect,” said Kiran, a field coordinator of the organisation. Some of the other findings of the report include pendency of registration at the labour office, un-updated identity cards, and the lack of a platform for registering grievances.