Hyderabad: Negligence in collection of construction cess condemned

Musheerabad: Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) condemned GHMC officials for not implementing building and other construction workers welfare cess Act, 1996 in the city. CITU issued a statement in this regard on Sunday, signed by CITU city president Eshwar Rao and secretary M Venkatesh.

CITU alleged that labour and GHMC officials colluded with builders and contractors and were not collecting building construction cess since last six years. CITU called for a protest in front of labour office on February 25 demanding proper implementation of the Act, initiate new welfare schemes for construction labour and take action against those officials who failed to collect the cess dues.

As per the Act passed in 1996 due to left parties' fight for the rights of labourers, every construction built with more than Rs 10 lakh expenditure should pay one per cent cess within 30 days after completion of the work. They alleged that although several constructions were in progress in Hyderabad, Rangareddy and Medchal disticts, the cess was not collected and deposited with welfare board.

While about 40,000 buildings with expenditure more than Rs 10 lakh were built in GHMC limits since 2014, the cess was collected only from 80 buildings, the note read. CITU questioned why the cess was not being collected from private and government constructions. It also questioned why the due cess was not collected from Metro Rail (Rs 360 crore), Mission Bhagiratha (Rs 366 crore), Pragathi Bhavan, minister and MLA quarters, Kaleshwaram project and other major constructions in the state. Citing a case against L&T in this regard, CITU alleged that the government had not even filed counter against the court ruling, demonstrating the collusion between government officials and builders.

CITU urged labourers to participate in the protest in large numbers at Labour commissioner office on February 25 to highlight the injustice being done to construction labourers.