Lieutenant governor VK Saxena on Saturday gave his nod to the proposal to extend benefits of all welfare schemes run by the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system.
Officials said the move would help minimise leakages and promote targeted delivery of benefits, while simultaneously improving working conditions, quality of life and ensuring the welfare of construction workers.
Delhi government provides financial assistance through 17 welfare schemes to over 13 lakh labourers registered with the construction workers’ welfare board. The government collects 1% of the construction cost as a cess from all government and private projects being built for over Rs 10 lakh.
“The schemes approved under section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016 would ensure that all financial benefits like grant of disability pension, ex-gratia payment, medical assistance, maternity benefit and death benefit to genuine beneficiaries are given only through DBT after their Aadhaar-based authentication,” said an official from the LG secretariat.
“The LG has given specific directions to labour department officials for constant supervision and monitoring of the disbursement process, and accountability will be fixed if any fraudulent activity is noticed,” the official added.
Officials said the LG has also underlined the need to make the registration process fully transparent, foolproof and tamper-free to ensure that only genuine construction workers are registered and benefit from the welfare board’s funds.
“For this, the deputy labour commissioners of the districts concerned would be made responsible for the transparent and efficient implementation of the benefit transfer to entitled and genuine beneficiaries only. A stringent exercise to establish the veracity of the registration process and the registered beneficiaries be undertaken concurrently,” the LG noted on the file while giving his approval.
Officials said the new system is being put in place due to instances of financial irregularities in the functioning of the board and leakages due to “ghost construction workers”.
Investigation into the alleged illegal registration of fake construction workers and financial irregularities is being conducted by the anti-corruption branch under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.