The Welfare of Construction Workers in India: Why Has Kerala Succeeded Where Other States Have Failed?

Snehasadanam, an old age home for construction workers located in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, is fairly nondescript, made distinct only by a faded board opposite the local Doordarshan office. As I made my way through the entrance, a steep slope led me to the two-story house that is the only welcome refuge for construction workers across Kerala.

MC Nayagam, a retired construction worker in his eighties, has been a resident of Snehasadanam since 2006. He smiled as he told me his story. “I never got married, and I gave the only plot of land I had to my sister, who sold it. As I was trade union activist, I decided to make the Indian National Trade Union Congress office my home.” He came to know of Snehasadanam during his stint in the trade union. “I didn’t have an alternative until I came here,” he continued.

Snehasadanam currently houses nineteen residents who receive a pension of Rs 600, half of which is deducted for payment towards the house. “To live in the home they need to be recommended either by the local Member of Parliament, a Member of the Legislative Assembly or by a registered trade union. We have only one such home right now because we are not even running at full capacity—which is 30—yet,” said KG Keshavan Potty, a retired senior superintendent of the Labour Department of Kerala, who is in charge of Snehasadanam.

On 13 February 2015, the Social Justice Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and UU Lalit, responded to a Public Interest Litigation petition filed by the National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour. The court was reacting to the central government's affidavit, which stated that less than 10 percent of the amount collected as cess had been utilized by state governments under the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 and The Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess Act, 1996. Lokur and Lalit said that they were shocked at the dismal progress of the utilisation of the cess collected.

These two acts were put into operation by the United Front government, led by HD Deve Gowda, to mandate the registration of construction workers with the construction workers’ welfare board and to ensure that contractors provided them with adequate safety measures at the work site. Those who register with the boards are entitled to various provisions like pension, health care and compensation for accidental death or injuries sustained while on duty. The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act also made it mandatory for all states and union territories to set up welfare boards to monitor the implementation of these provisions.

In this regard, the Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess Act went on to declare that all state governments were to collect a construction cess of a minimum of 1 and maximum of 2 percent on every project, including housing projects that were worth over Rs 10 lakh, to run the welfare boards.

In the Right to Information report I filed for in October 2014 to which I received a reply from the Ministry of Labour in November 2014, I found that while about Rs 14,099 crore had been collected by states and union territories as construction cess till 31 March 2014, only about Rs 2,382 crore was utilised. The state that utilized most of its funds was Kerala, which spent Rs 888 crore out of the Rs 954 crore it had collected as of March 2014. Kerala’s expenditure stands in stark contrast to states such as Karnataka and Maharashtra, which spent Rs 34 crore and Rs 63 crore out of their collection of Rs 1,741 crore and Rs 2,092 crore, respectively.

Kerala’s efficacy in the utilisation of these funds offers a helpful insight into the state’s history with reference to the welfare of construction workers. The Kerala Construction Workers' Welfare Act was put into force in 1990 by the Left Democratic Front government, headed by EK Nayanar at that time. According to Gopalakrishnan, a member of the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and a resident of Snehasadanam, the act was an extension of the Kerala Artisans and Skilled Workers’ Welfare Act, 1986, a fact that members of the welfare board in Thiruvananthapuram also confirmed to me. In his conversation with me, Gopalakrishnan was also quick to point out that the act was brought about only after workers launched a movement demanding that the legislation be passed.

The Kerala Construction Workers’ Welfare Act provides for compensation for members of the board in the event of accidental death or injuries leading to disability while on duty. The act includes provisions for the marriage of the dependents of a registered worker, which is applicable for a maximum of two children—Rs 3,000 for a daughter and Rs 2,500 for a son. It also provides for the scholarships for two children, apart from a special allowance of Rs 5,000 for payments towards coaching classes for competitive exams. Many of these provisions found their way into the two central legislations six years later.

A Alexander, the secretary of the Kerala Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Board, believed that Kerala’s success was a result of the emphasis the board put on being ubiquitous. “Our offices are present in every district. Delegates from most of the other states have come to study our board,” he said, betraying a hint of pride.

According to him, the success of the scheme in Kerala also came down to the work that was being done by trade unions in helping organise the workers. “Their intention in helping the workers maybe to increase their strength, but there is no denying that their efforts have helped enable workers gain access to the welfare schemes.”

Prabhakaran Nair, a sixty-four-year-old resident of Snehasadanam, said he was an activist with AITUC while he was engaged in construction work. “I used to make sure that the construction workers I knew paid the monthly subscription fees regularly. I used to collect it myself sometimes,” he said.

The board too has been proactive in implementing the law. Alexander told me that there are 18 lakh registered members, of whom two lakh are pensioners. According to the board’s expenditure logs for the year 2013–14, over Rs 100 crore, out of the total expenditure of Rs 150 crore, was paid towards pensions.

Alexander explained that the expenditure on Snehasadanam alone, which was inaugurated in 2006, is over Rs 16 lakh. Apart from the pension, the residents of the home also get free medical care. “A doctor visits them thrice a month, and we take care of all their medical expenses, including medicines,” Potty told me. “We also conduct an annual trip for them. So far we have taken them to Kanyakumari, Kovalam, Shankhumugam. These are day long trips as most of them are quite old.”

However, Kerala is still beleaguered by the low cess it has collected in the past twenty-five years, when compared to other states. “In other states they collect the cess at the time of approving a project. Here we collect it only after the project is completed, so collections aren’t very high. Some politicians say that we are owed arrears of around Rs 2,500 crore. But we have made use of the money available to us right now,” Alexander told me.

On 9 August 2012, an amendment bill, called The Building and Other Construction Workers Related Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2013, was tabled in the Rajya Sabha due to the poor implementation of both the acts in most states. One of the main amendments was doing away with the 5 percent ceiling the previous legislation had set on administrative expenses as a proportion of total expenditure of the boards. Interestingly, in Kerala the total administrative expenditure for 2011–12 was approximately Rs 7.18 crores, and the total expenditure was Rs 756 crore, resulting in an administrative expense of 0.95 percent of total expenditure. The bill has been pending ever since.

It was referred to a parliamentary standing committee, chaired by Dara Singh Chauhan, a Bahujan Samaj Party MP from Ghosi, Uttar Pradesh, which was scathing in its assessment of the government’s intentions. The committee found that “the Government seems to be only concerned with the paraphernalia instead of the welfare of construction workers.” This followed from the committee’s observation that the government had only accepted nine of the twenty recommendations made by a task force set up by the Ministry of Labour to study the laws. However, when contacted, officials at the Ministry of Labour were unable to provide information about the task force’s report.

The Standing Committee’s report was particularly critical of the government’s failure to amend the sections prescribing the penalty for failure to abide by the rules. At present the penalty a contractor has to pay for not providing safety measures and failure to notify the government about beginning a construction project is a three-month jail sentence or a maximum fine of Rs 2,000.

It also highlighted the fact there is no grievance redressal system for the workers. The committee was of the opinion that the central government should work towards setting up monitoring systems as had been mandate by the act, but not implemented to ensure that states complied with the provisions. Its report was submitted on 15 March 2014. Since then there has been no movement on this legislation.

Meanwhile, my time at Snehasadam came to a befitting end. Gopalkrishnan elaborated on his passion for writing: “I have been writing for some time now. Nowadays I have a lot of time on my hands. I've written eight articles, including one about the Vishwakarma caste called Karmarekha. It’s not just writing, I also like to take up small carpentry jobs here if required, that’s what I'm good at.” Soon it was 1.30 pm. and, as Potty had told me earlier, time for lunch, so we wrapped up our conversation.