Delhi govt targets 1.5 mn construction workers, jump in welfare spending

Delhi government has targeted to raise the number of registered construction workers in the city to 1.5 million this year and increase spending on various welfare schemes for them by 20 times, officials said on Monday.

The move comes in the wake of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal earlier this year expressing dissatisfaction over less number of registration of workers and emphasising to increase it further.

As per official data, the number of registered workers was 1.3 million by end of 2022-23.

The Delhi government will also raise spending on welfare schemes meant for construction workers to Rs 246 crore this year, up from Rs 12.66 crore last year, officials said.

Last year over 4,500 applications were received from registered construction workers for various welfare schemes run by Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board.

Out of which, just over 2,000 were processed for benefits of different schemes with an expenditure of Rs 12.66 crore, a labour department officer said.

The Board had a corpus of Rs 4,212.34 crore collected as construction cess, by the end of last fiscal. A one per cent cess is imposed on all private and official construction projects worth Rs 10 lakh and above.

The fund collected through the cess is used to finance various welfare schemes like financial assistance in case of death of registered workers, maternity benefits, old age pension, medical care, among others.