Govt cracks down on misuse of labour cards in Mysuru, Chamarajanagar

MYSURU: The labour department has launched an operation to combat labour card fraud and curb it. The department has now launched an operation to crack down on the misuse of labour cards issued by the Karnataka government to benefit construction workers in the twin districts of Mysuru and Chamarajanagar.
Both districts have issued nearly 2.03 lakh labour cards. The department has received numerous complaints about bogus cardholders. The department has identified 90 fake beneficiaries in Chamarajanagar district and 711 in Mysuru after launching this drive on February 17.
It has issued 55,455 cards for construction workers in Chamarajanagar district - 22,693 in Chamarajanagar circle, 22499 in Kollegal circle and 10,223 in Gundlupet circle - as of Tuesday. In Mysuru, the department has registered 1,48,767 construction workers including 53,456 in Mysuru circle.
There has been a huge demand for enrolment of these cards from the people in the unorganised sector after the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board started to distribute benefits to construction workers as the Board accumulated welfare funds collected from one per cent cess from the public from all construction activities over the years.
As many of them obtained these cards by submitting fake documents during covid crisis through the Seva Sindhu portal, now the department has launched a crackdown against fake beneficiaries, Chamarajanagar district labour officer Mahadevaswamy told TOI.
He said officials had identified over 90 fake beneficiaries since last week's launch of this drive. This drive will be conducted until the end of this month, he said.
Mysuru District Labour Officer Rajesh Jadhav said officials have identified over 711 fake beneficiaries by misusing these cards from last week's drive in the district.
It has also frozen 122 beneficiaries' cards so far on the grounds of not submitting the required documents to prove that they engaged in construction activities.
As construction workers were registered for labour cards online, the department is now making all efforts to identify fake beneficiaries, he said.
Centre of Indian Trade Unions Chamarajanagar district unit secretary M Mahesh said that the department must provide wide publicity and create awareness for launching this drive.