Construction workers say not paid in full in Grap period in Delhi

The statement came hours after the Supreme Court pulled up the chief secretaries of Delhi and neighbouring states

Labour unions in the Capital on Thursday stated that there are around 1.21 million workers that the Delhi government has not considered for compensation during periods when construction activities are halted due to high pollution levels.

The evening sky in Delhi NCR on Wednesday. (Sunil Ghosh/HT Photo)

The statement came hours after the Supreme Court pulled up the chief secretaries of Delhi and neighbouring states for not paying workers during these periods.

Earlier in the day, the Delhi government in an affidavit submitted in the top court said it has decided to release ₹8,000 each as subsistence allowance to 90,693 construction workers registered with the state. The affidavit further mentioned that while ₹18.32 crore has been disbursed to immediately deposit ₹2,000 in these workers’ accounts, the remaining ₹6,000 will be deposited after the verification of the workers.

However, labour unions and experts challenged this characterisation.

“The government is trying to portray as if there are just around 90,000 construction workers in Delhi. However, there are over 1.3 million workers registered with the Delhi government, of which about 90,000 have renewed their registration in the last few months. They need to make provisions for the rest of the 1.21 million workers too and include them in the registration and verification drive,” said Sunil Kumar Aledia, executive director of Centre for Holistic Development (CHD).

Other labour unions said despite claims that the money has been disbursed, only a handful had received the ₹2000 till Thursday evening. “There are at least 300,000 workers whose applications are deliberately on hold, apart from the 1.3 million who had registered earlier with the labour department,” said Thaneshwar Adigaur, member of the Delhi Labour Welfare Board and secretary of the Delhi Asangathit Nirman Mazdoor Union.

The Delhi government did not respond to a request for a comment.