New Delhi: Mariam spent her younger days toiling as a construction worker. When she could no longer work as an elderly person, she got the benefit of a special pension meant for construction workers.
This pension of Rs 3,900 per month became the main source of her subsistence and ensured dignity.
Then about five months ago this pension stopped coming.
Mariam. Photo: Bibiyani
Since then, her food intake has reduced and she has had to bear the indignity of travelling to wherever she can find a meal. She has difficulty in walking and even sitting properly due to pains and stiffness, so one can imagine the extent of her recent difficulties.
Manmod and his wife Nirja are elderly, retired construction workers. Till about five months ago, both were getting a pension meant specifically for construction workers, adding up to around Rs 7,500 or so. This had become the sole means of their sustenance.
This support collapsed about five months ago when this pension stopped coming without any explanation being given. Like Marian, their food intake has declined and they have not been able to afford essential medicines at the time of illness.
Supporting himself with a stick and with trembling hands, Jagannath holds out a bank pass book to make his point that the pension which was the sole support for him and his wife has stopped coming. He is old as well as affected by disability.
Bahram Singh and Ram Pyari are two other workers similarly affected. Both were also down with typhoid during this period of deprivation and as a result have gone into debt. Somewhat similar is the case of Bhagwan Dass who suffered from a heart ailment during this period.
Manmod. Photo: Bibiyani
For Virendra Singh the period of going without the pension is to not five but 15 months. Both he and Umesh Singh had been union leaders of construction workers.
What is common to all these elderly, retired construction workers is that they all live in JJ Colony Bawana in outer Delhi. Within this single labour colony there are over 100 such workers. In addition, there are 22 workers here who stopped getting this pension 15 months back.
Most are elderly and the sudden stop in the monthly inflow of cash could prove severely harmful to them, even resulting in the death of some.
During the same period when these pensions stopped, educational help for children as well as other benefits provided to construction workers also stopped.
How?
This tragic situation is related to two factors, one national and the other more specific to Delhi.
These pensions and other benefits were being provided to these construction workers under two legislations enacted in 1996 for welfare and social security for construction workers all over the country. Briefly, these laws stipulate that a cess on construction is levied and boards are set up in all states to use the proceeds of this cess to provide many-sided welfare benefits to workers.
Despite powerful vested interests trying to block the implementation of these laws, constant mobilisation of workers supported by favourable court decisions (including those by the Supreme Court) led to a slow but steady progress of these laws.
By June 2018 as much as Rs 37,483 crore plus interest had accumulated in the form of cess-collected funds, out of which Rs 9,492 crore had been disbursed to nearly one crore workers in the form of various benefits.
The potential is several times more.
However, before workers’ struggles could take this forward, a big cloud of uncertainty and the possibility of great dilution of existing laws emerged in the form of the codification of the labour laws taken up by the Union government.
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In this phase of uncertainty and doubts a general stagnation and laxity in the implementation of these laws has been seen, contrary to the directions given in 2018 by the Supreme Court for stronger and speedier implementation of the 1996 laws for welfare of construction workers.
In Delhi a new factor was added as the pretext of an investigation in corruption complaints was used to deny further benefits to many construction workers. Upendra Singh, one of the senior most members one of the most highly committed and old unions, the Nirman Mazdoor Panchayat Sangam, has seen many struggles.
He says, “The saddest part is that the most honest unions and activists have suffered the most. First they suffered due to corruption. Now the ongoing investigation of corruption is used in practice to keep denying benefits to the same people who have already been victimised a lot and have suffered a lot.”
Remedies
In this distressing situation, the National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Workers (whose founder chairman was Justice V.K. Krishna Iyer) has said that while remedial action for re-starting benefits, including pensions denied arbitrarily to several construction workers, should be initiated immediately, the larger threat of dilution of existing protective laws should be faced with increasing mobilisation of workers all over the country.
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It held that this threat has critical importance not just for over seven crore construction workers but also several other sections of workers covered by similar type of protective laws.
The national coordinator of this Committee, Subhash Bhatnagar has devoted his entire life to this campaign of construction workers. He says, “This is a critical time for defending gains achieved after several decades of struggle. This is a time for greater and greater unity. This is a time for intellectuals coming forward to protect the threatened gains of workers.”
Bharat Dogra is a freelance journalist who has been involved with several social movements.
