Construction workers protest against changes in labour laws, grant of social benefits

Around 250 construction workers in the city gathered at Kamla Nehru Park on Monday and marched up to the Mini Secretariat building to highlight the problems being

Around 250 construction workers in the city gathered at Kamla Nehru Park on Monday and marched up to the Mini Secretariat building to highlight the problems being faced by them related to registration and the availability of benefits under the schemes launched by labour welfare board. The workers also said that only few of them received financial and material help from the state government during the lockdown.

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Dharm Saini, president, Bhawan Nirman Kamgaar Union, said that the decision of the government to change labour rules and the inability of the authorities to reach out to construction workers during the lockdown and thereafter have caused immense hardships for them. “The construction workers are yet to receive any monetary benefits due to them under the Kanyadan scheme, the death claim benefit scheme, the cycle scheme and the toolkit scheme. Authorities have rejected their claims raising several objections,” said Saini.

The protesting workers also said that decision of the government to register workers only online was also causing lot of problems as majority of them have no formal education and find it difficult to complete the online process. “The government should allow offline registration of workers. The money with construction workers’ welfare board should be spent on the welfare of the workers,” said Rajender Saroha, district secretary of the union.

Saroha also said that financial and material benefits announced for construction workers reached very few of them, and they wanted to bring this matter to the notice of the government by holding this protest.

The Kamgaar union on Monday also submitted memorandums to the state and central governments through deputy commissioner of Gurugram. The protesters also said that if their issues were not solved then they would start a larger protest movement.

Amit Khatri, deputy commissioner, Gurugram,said that the issues raised by construction workers will be sent to the government for consideration. “The memorandum will be sent to state government for consideration,” he said.