NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India on Thursday said it was “shocking” that out of about 70,000 registered building and construction workers in Mumbai, only 11,000 have got the benefit of an act meant for their welfare and its implementation was a “complete flop”.
The court was informed by the counsel appearing for Maharashtra that around 70,000 construction workers are registered in Mumbai but benefits of the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation and Employment and Conditions of Service) Act 1996, have been given to about 11,000 workers.
“What has happened to the balance 59,000 workers is not known. What are the benefits given to these 11,000 workers is not known. This is shocking,” said the bench of Justices Madan B Lokur, Deepak Gupta and Hemant Gupta.
The court has posted the matter for hearing in third week of January.
The apex court had earlier said it was “extremely unfortunate” that around 5,000 construction workers in Mumbai were not registered under the Act and had asked the state to identify the contractors and builders who have employed these workers without they being registered.
It had observed that due to non-registration, these construction workers would not get benefit of provisions of the Act.
The issue of utilisation of cess collected under the 1996 Act in Maharashtra had cropped up when the court was hearing a matter related to framing of solid waste management policy by the states.
The issue of waste management had cropped up when the top court was dealing with a tragic incident of 2015 in which it had taken cognisance of the death of a seven-year-old boy due to dengue in Delhi.
The victim was allegedly denied treatment by five private hospitals here and his distraught parents had subsequently committed suicide.
Source: Press Trust of India