Hyderabad, January 03: Appanna , a 25-year-old daily wage labourer, fell to death from the seventh floor of a building under construction at Adarshnagar in Uppal a few days ago. Another labourer, Ch Sulochana was critically injured when she slipped from the third floor of an underconstruction apartment at Madhapur recently.
These are just a few examples of accidents that are rampant in construction sites that more than often lack basic safety measures.
And such accidents, oftentimes fatal, leave the families of the victims in the lurch with no help from any agency or their employers.
To help the workers in the unorganised sector, the Andhra Pradesh Labour Department is preparing a comprehensive plan to issue identity cards to the labourers in the twin cities and make a record of their details.
“The department would convene a meeting with trade unions, builders and realtors to take precautionary measures and issue identity cards for construction labourers so that they would get all the benefits under the Building and Other Construction Workers (regulation of Employment and Working Conditions) Act, 1996,” joint commissioner of Labour (twin cities) M N Varahala Reddy told Express “Besides, the labour department has also started collecting one per cent cess from builders on their cost of construction. We collected `330 crore from the builders and the money would be used for the benefit of construction workers,” he added.
He said that the labour department has identified as many as 20,000 unregistered construction labourers working at various sites in the twin cities. “As labour deaths are rising, we have taken to enforce the registration process, collecting their name, age, address, family status and native address. Hundreds of daily wage labourers are migrating to Hyderabad to work in the construction sector,” he added.
If the labourers register their details paying `12 per annum, the labour department would pay them a compensation of `2 lakh in case of accidental death and `5,000 towards funeral expenses. Similarly, `2 lakh would be paid for those who suffer permanent disability due to an accident and `1 lakh for partial disability. The labourers would also get pensions after they attain 60 years of age.
–Agencies