Government Launches Portal For Construction Workers

On Wednesday, the government rolled out a game-changing portal to streamline benefits for construction workers. At a review meeting led by Labour Secretary Sumita Dawra, the new Building and Other Construction Workers (BoCW) Management Information System made its debut, promising a revolution in how benefits are managed and delivered. The portal will provide a centralized platform for maintaining data and ensure that effective compilation and analysis are done from information compiled from different state BoCW welfare boards.

It would, in other words, be a central source of the construction workers' data to help monitor and evaluate the benefits given through the overabundance of welfare schemes. The states and UTs have been advised to get themselves registered on the portal and update the critical information along with the details of fund utilization and worker registration under the central and state-level schemes. These schemes encompass a wide range of social security benefits accruing to the workers for insurance, healthcare, housing, and many more.

It was pointed out in the review meeting that about 57 million workers are currently registered with various welfare boards under BoCW across the country, and the amount of cess collected cumulatively for these workers is about Rs 1.15 trillion. Out of this, over Rs 66,000 crore has been allocated to extend various benefits under the welfare schemes. The Ministry of Labour is engaging with state BoCW welfare boards to ensure that these funds are productively utilized toward extending the benefits of central government schemes to the workers.

Continuing on the same note, the Ministry also informed that there has been vast progress in the implementation of these benefits. Ayushman Cards for health benefits for 13 million BoCW workers, under the PMJAY Scheme, have already been accorded approval. More than 85000 workers have been brought under insurance coverage under the PMJJBY (Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana)Scheme. Going ahead, the PMSBY Scheme has protected disability to another 124000 workers.

The Secretary of Labour further emphasized the integration of the workers' data on BoCW with the E-Shram portal. He said that, in turn, the portal should lead to an integrated delivery system for the unorganized sector workers to access various schemes and benefits with increased effectiveness and efficiency. E-Shram will make the interface with workers a single window in welfare delivery.

Besides the launch of the portal, the review meeting also took up issues regarding progress on labor reforms. He asked all the states and UT, labor secretaries they draft their rules in conformity with the draft central rules under the four new labor codes so that in the whole country, there would be consistency, and a kind of cohesion in there about implementation of the labor laws.

The labor ministry has decided to hold six regional consultations in two months to ensure that the coordination between the central government and state/UT administrations is better on labor reforms. These consultations would be held at different locations so that discussions and facilitation of cooperation on labor issues and reforms could take place.

The launch of the BoCW online portal and the thrust on data integration with the E-Shram portal are important measures that address the need to not only improve the facility for benefits disbursement, to be sure, but also capture proper data. This would consolidate data in one point and make a simple interface to provide access to welfare schemes envisaged by the government for one of its most important, rather often vulnerable, labor sectors.