Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday instructed the labour department to provide free bus passes and group life insurance alongwith verification of all 13 lakh registered workers. Additionally, the Delhi Government has announced subsidised housing for construction workers in Delhi and will also provide transit hostels to migrant labourers working in the city.
The Chief Minister chaired a high-level meeting with the Labour Department on Monday to review the functioning of the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board. The meeting was also attended by Labour Minister Raaj Kumar Anand and senior officials of the concerned departments. The Chief Minister expressed his displeasure with the Board’s inability to reach out to every single construction worker of Delhi. In a meeting, the Chief Minister expressed his concerns regarding the lack of benefits reaching all workers and instructed the department to formulate an action plan to extend the benefit of all welfare schemes to each and every registered construction worker. He also directed officials to conduct a proper exercise along with Revenue Department teams to verify the registered workers by June this year.
“If the department is extending the benefit of these schemes to barely 400-500 people in the name of applications for a scheme, then there is no point in running this department itself. The costs of the department would be higher than that of the welfare schemes. If the department has 3,000-4,000 crores lying with it, then it must extend the benefit of its schemes to all 13 lakh workers, there can be no compromise with the welfare of our workforce,” Kejriwal said
He also directed them to find out and submit the number of registered workers aged above 60 within one week, so the benefit of pension can be extended to them. “Start reaching out to all registered workers on their phones. The cost of sending SMS and IVRS messages to all the workers on their phones would be much lesser than running TV and radio campaigns and it will be much more effective,” he said.
The chief minister directed the Labour Department to provide free bus passes and group life insurance to the registered workers. The government has also announced subsidised housing for construction workers in Delhi and will also provide transit hostels to migrant labourers working in the city. During the review meeting, Kejriwal had instructed the officials to explore the feasibility of providing group life insurance and free bus passes to all the registered workers. The chief minister directed the board officials to meet Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) officials and group life insurance companies to chart out the costs of implementing the schemes at the earliest.
The meeting came as a follow up of a recently held review meeting during which the CM had instructed the board officials to formulate an action plan to utilise at least 25% of its funds on workers’ welfare this year.
In addition to this, the Delhi government has announced that toolkits and skill training for masons, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and painters will be provided on a large scale. Kejriwal has also announced free coaching for children of construction workers, and the development of crèche facilities on sites. These measures come as a significant relief for construction workers in Delhi, who have been adversely affected by the pandemic and have been struggling with several challenges.