Ministry of Labour & Employment has issued eligibility conditions for availing benefits under the Building and Other Construction Workers scheme on 27 July 2023. As per the extant provisions of Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996, every building worker who has completed eighteen years of age, but has not completed sixty years of age, and who has been engaged in any building or other construction for not less that ninety days during the preceding twelve months shall be eligible for registration as a beneficiary in the State Welfare Boards under this Act and the same provisions for the Act continue.
Central Government had sent a Model Welfare Scheme for Building and Other Construction Workers and Action Plan for strengthening Implementation Machinery to all States/UTs, wherein, inter-alia, the State / UT Governments through their State/UT BOCW Welfare Boards were advised to ensure that the domicile status of a worker should not prevent the worker from getting registered outside his/her state of origin.
It was further advised that in order to facilitate registration of BOC migrant workers under the BOCW (RE&CS) Act, 1996, creation of facilitation centres/help desks should be there to help BOC workers, conducting of special drive with focus on migrant BOC workers and to ensure no discrimination be faced by them in terms of registration and delivery of benefits.
In order to simplify the registration/enrolment process, detailed provisions were given as Machinery for Registration of workers in the aforesaid Model Welfare Scheme, by way of allotting Unique Identification Number to the registered BOC workers, delegation/appointment of competent officers at local/municipal/panchayat level, allowing self-certification, holding regular camps / creation of facilitation centers at prominent labour chowks/addas, issuance of ID cards to BOC workers etc.
