A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India.

For those who missed the story, the company concerned was found paying migrant workers Rs.50 per week as wages, as against the promised Rs.157 per day. This openly flouted the provisions of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (1979), the Building and Other Construction Workers' Act and the Minimum Wages Act (1948). This shocking story of exploitation in India's IT capital became public only when a handful of workers from Chhattisgarh managed to escape from the work site and were put in touch with a labour union which in turn produced the emaciated and frightened workers before the media for their testimony.

Violations

The contract in this case had been awarded to a company, B.L. Kashyap and Sons Ltd., that had only a year ago (July 29, 2011) been found guilty of evasion of Provident Fund payments to workers by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) of India. A fine of Rs.593 crore was levied on the company after confirmation of forgery by the Central Finger Print Bureau of the National Crime Records Bureau. Interestingly, following the order, the Builders Association and 26 other establishments filed a case in the Delhi High Court against the EPFO, challenging their obligations regarding payment of Provident Fund to casual workers employed at construction sites. The case is currently on......Read More

Source: The Hindu