PANAJI: A task force has been formed to amend the schemes meant for construction workers. The task force will work with the mandate to ensure that these schemes reach the construction workers without any hassles.
The Construction Workers Welfare Board has a number of schemes, which provide benefits to construction workers. However, the nature of schemes is such that such workers find it very difficult to take any benefit. To deal with this situation, the task-force has been formed.
Pacheco Fernandes, accounts officer, Goa Labour Welfare Board, said, "We have a lot of schemes under Construction Workers Welfare Board, which provide maternity benefits, scholarship to children, pension and so on to construction workers. To avail benefits under the scheme, construction workers should be registered with the board, which is often not the case. Therefore, they can't avail the benefits."
Fernandes further informed, "In a recent meeting, which was chaired by Labour Minister Rohan Khaunte, a decision was taken to amend these schemes so that benefit reaches the construction workers."
Most construction workers are migrants and they are not aware that they have to be registered with the board to be eligible for benefits. These benefits are supposed to be provided from a fund maintained by Construction Workers Welfare Board.
On all projects, there is a 1% cess on the estimated cost of construction, which goes to this fund. It is reported that the fund has a corpus of Rs 130 crore, which is mostly lying unutilised because workers are not coming up to take benefits. The task-force will now have to deal with this issue.
