The Hindu : ESI health care for construction workers likely

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 01, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

ESI health care for construction workers likely

By Our Staff Reporter

KANNUR MARCH 31. The Labour and Rehabilitation Minister, Babu Divakaran, has said that the Government is working out a plan for the tie-up of the Kerala Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Board (KBOCWWB) with the ESI Corporation to provide ESI health care assistance to construction workers.

Inaugurating the distribution of various financial aids and benefits of the board to members in the district here today, Mr. Divakaran said that though the board had conducted health care camps for construction workers in different parts of the State, utilising the ESI health care system to provide health care to them was under serious consideration of the Government. This was also part of the Government's efforts to ensure that more and more workers utilised the specialised health care available in ESI hospitals.

Stressing the importance of various welfare fund schemes in the State, the Minister said the 19 welfare funds here had over 45 lakh workers as their members. ``This means that nearly 1.25 crore people, roughly one-third of the State's population, are being benefited by them,'' he said. As for the KBOCWWB, Rs. 21 crores had been disbursed by it in 2002-2003 as against Rs. 14 crores last fiscal. Stating that the functioning of the board would be streamlined, Mr. Divakaran said that efforts were under way to ensure that applications for benefits and assistance were disbursed in one month.

He said the drop in the interest rate would have adverse impact on the functioning of welfare boards. The major chunk of the corpus fund of the KBOCWWB was by way of cess collection from the construction sector, he said adding that the board received annually an estimated Rs. 100 crores in this way, despite problems in collecting it. But the drop of interest rates was a setback for the welfare schemes, he said.

``We have assured the Central Government that all the welfare funds boards in the State will deposit their funds to a proposed Central Welfare Fund, provided the interest rates are higher,'' he said adding that the Centre had positively responded to the proposal.

Distributing the financial aids and benefits, the Forest and Sports Minister, K. Sudhakaran, said there were complaints that the board had as its members many people who did not deserve to be covered under the scheme.

Trade unions in the construction sector alone could ensure that only construction workers were covered by the welfare fund scheme. He suggested that the board set up a few old age homes for construction workers. Financial aids and benefits to the tune of around Rs. 40 lakhs were distributed to around 1,200 workers at the function.

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