Gujarat govt implementing construction labour welfare laws "in bits and pieces": Economist

By A Representative
Speaking at the annual general body meeting of the Bandhkam Majoor Sangathan (BMS), the civil rights organization that works among construction workers, well-known economist Hemant Shah said that though Parliament passed two laws in 1996 for the welfare of construction workers, it took eight years for Gujarat to begin implementing them.
Even today, he said, the state government is implementing the laws in “bits and pieces.” The meeting took place on Saturday in Ahmedabad.
According to Prof Shah, the state government has so far procured a cess worth Rs 2,000 crore from the construction companies, as specified in law. However, he regretted, most of the money is used up by the government itself. Even the interest that the state government gets on the cess is not used for the welfare of construction workers, he alleged.
Prof Shah further said that even after 14 years after the formation of the welfare board to ameliorate construction workers’ plight, only six lakh of them have been registered with it, whereas there are 20 lakh of them in the state. He added, despite the allocation of Rs 50 crore for cheap food (Rs 10 per plate) for construction workers at specified labour market spots, they are unable to use facility, which is not available at construction sites.
“The government talks of digital India. Why does it not deposit the amount in each worker’s bank account?”, he asked.

Comments

Xi Jinping’s visit to USA: Recognition that China can't be contained?

By Vijay Prashad President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to the United States must be understood as more than an encounter between two heads of state, but it must be seen as an encounter between two possible futures. In one future, the United States imposes a spiral of confrontation against China. Trade disputes harden into economic warfare, then economic warfare intensifies into technological blockades, technological blockades produce military encirclement, and finally military encirclement creates incidents, and incidents the danger of becoming an unimaginable war.

Swaminarayan, untouchability and the 'we are not Hindu' argument

By Rajiv Shah Following my blog on why the Eiffel Tower authorities should take all the blame for giving in to the Swaminarayan sadhus ’ bizarre demand to “invisibilise” women, including its female staff, during their visit to the internationally renowned Paris tourist centre on September 5, an interesting comment by one of the top academics drew my attention to something I vaguely knew about one of India’s most powerful and richest religious sects.

From margins to microphones: The rise of Dalit hip-hop in India

By Tersina Maria Toppo* A protest does not always arrive as a slogan shouted from a street corner. Sometimes, it arrives on a beat. A microphone replaces the megaphone, a music video becomes a public square, and the smartphone becomes the space where a history once pushed to the margins is narrated, debated, and shared.

Counterview

Search This Blog