E-Paper
Delay in ex gratia payments: Punjab labour dept initiates action against seven officials
Confirming the development, the senior officials of the labour department said that the family members of the construction workers are yet to receive the compensation and a departmental chargesheet has been issued against the erring officials
The Punjab Labour Department initiated action against six assistant labour commissioners (ALC) and a deputy secretary of the Punjab Labour Welfare Board for delaying the ex-gratia payments of construction workers. The department had given ALC time till October 18 to clear all pending cases.
Confirming the development, the senior officials of the labour department said that the family members of the construction workers are yet to receive the compensation and a departmental chargesheet has been issued against the erring officials.
As per the Central government guidelines, the ex-gratia amount should be disbursed within sixty days of receiving the application. But in many cases, ALCs were found to have not forwarded the concerned applications even for more than a year. As per the existing provisos, the Punjab building and other construction workers (BOCW) welfare board gives ₹2 lakh in case of natural death and ₹4 lakh for accidental death to the kin of the deceased construction workers.
Labour department principal secretary Krishan Kumar has initiated action against Sangrur, Moga, Patiala, Mohali, Hoshiarpur, and Ferozepur ALCs.
Besides the delay at the district level, many applications were found stuck at the head office of the Punjab labour welfare board for which the deputy secretary of the board has also been issued a chargesheet.
Meanwhile, it has been learned that all the labour officers have been given 21 days to respond to the chargesheet issued for delay in processing the applications.
Senior officials of the labour department, privy to development said, that over 2,000 applications of ex gratia were pending for a long period. The officials further informed that some of the ALCs were not even aware of such high pendency, which has raised serious concerns.
The officials informed that the pendency in other welfare schemes for construction workers would also be cleared in the coming days.
