Imphal, July 15: Although the rules of the Building and Construction Works Act have been formulated in Manipur acting on the directive of the Supreme Court as the said Act has not yet been fully implemented in the State for the last many years, over Rs 20 crores that the daily wage earners would benefited from has come to naught.

Disclosing this to The Sangai Express, a reliable source said that although the Act had been enacted and implemented all over India in 1995, the daily wage earners have not been able to get any benefit from it as the rules for the implementation of the Act had not been finalised by many States including Manipur.

However, at the directive of the Supreme Court to all the States including Manipur, rules formulated by the State Government had been approved by the Cabinet recently, the source said, adding that the Labour Commissioner of the State would be soon submitting the second affidavit to the apex court in connection with the progress on the steps taken up by the Government in connection with implementation of the Act.

In accordance to the provisions of the Act, for every work executed whose estimated cost is above Rs 10 lakhs, the construction agencies, whether it be that of the Centre, State or private, 1 percent is to be given to the workers.

Under the rules formulated by the State Government for implementation of the Act, a board would be set up and it would monitor the utilisation of the amount to be given by the work agencies in providing education allowance of the children of the workers, housing loan, insurance and maternity benefit, the source explained, adding that the workers should be registered under the Government to enjoy this benefit.

On the other hand, in connection with implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme for Unorganised Sector Workers which is being taken up a policy by the Central Government, the State Government has started collecting the list of the workers living below poverty line (BPL).

Under this scheme, a worker would be entitled to get free medical treatment costing upto Rs 30000 in any Government approved Hospital.

The beneficiary workers would be selected by the Government and the insurance company would issue smart cards to them.

The workers should produce this smart cards at the hospital for getting the free treatment.

Under this scheme, each of the workers would be made to contribute Rs 30 annually while the Government would provide an annual premium amount of Rs 750 .

Comment