Boon for workers as SC upholds cess on construction firms

The Supreme Court has held that parliament is well within its power to enact a law imposing ‘cess’ on the building construction companies for the betterment of the unorganised and much exploited workers engaged in the block buster trade.

Dismissing a law suit that questioned parliament’s competence to enact the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 (BOCWA), the top court last week said the object of the enactment is to regulate the employment and conditions of service of building and other construction workers.

They are traditionally exploited sections in the society and the law is meant to provide for their safety, health and other welfare measures.

In 1996, the government estimated 8.5 million workers engaged in this dusty and hazardous trade. It noted that construction workers are one of the “most numerous and vulnerable segments of the unorganised labour in India”.

They are characterised by their “inherent risk to the life and limb of the workers. The work is also characterized by its casual nature, temporary relationship between employer and employee, uncertain working hours, lack of basic amenities and inadequacy of welfare facilities”.

According to the government, in the absence of adequate statutory provisions, there’s a lack of information about the number and nature of accidents that occur at building sites.

While taxes become a part of the Consolidated Fund of India, which is the source for all government expenditures, cess is deposited in a fund that is earmarked for a particular cause.

Though the Friday ruling comes as a boost to the construction workers, an uncontested report says since the inception of this law imposing a cess on the construction industry to fund the well being measures for the workers, about Rs 5,236 crore has been added to the government kitty.

Of this money collected for the welfare of workers, the government has spent a meager amount of Rs 753 crore only so far. It is said the collected amount had come from only a few of the states.

Take the case of Delhi that had undergone rampant construction activities for the Commonwealth Games last year, the building contractors shelled out about Rs 656 crore and the Sheila Dikshit government utilised only about Rs 29 crore for the wellbeing of the impoverished work force.