The Karnataka government will conduct house-to-house survey to identify ineligible persons who have enrolled as members of Karnataka State Construction and Other Workers’ Welfare Board, Labour Minister Santosh Lad said on Friday.
“As many as 39 lakh workers have been added in the last few years. From 12.91 lakh in 2018, the numbers had gone up to 51 lakh of which six lakh has been removed already. The State-wide audit of workers would be taken up through Ambedkar Karmika Seva Kendra and the audit to identify ineligible workers would be completed in the next six to seven months,” the Minister told the Legislative Council in response to a question from Congress member U.B. Venkatesh. “People owning luxury cars, land owners, GST number holders, and lecturers among others have been found to have become members,” he said.
In Haveri district alone, Mr. Lad said 2.7 lakh members of the Board have been found ineligible during the departmental audit. “Since we do not have enough personnel, house-to-house survey will be done through the Ambedkar Karmika Seva Kendra,” he said.
Reduction in scholarship
To a question from BJP member Prathap Simha Nayak on steep downward revision of the scholarship amount for children of construction workers, Mr. Lad said: “The scholarship amount had been increased three to ten times in 2021. Without downward revision, ₹2,500 crore was needed for 13 lakh applications. In the last four to five years, ₹6,500 crore has been spent. Currently, ₹6,500 crore is available in the corpus and 14 other programmes have to be implemented besides scholarships. We would have closed the Board in two years if scholarship was not revised as annual receipt is only about ₹1,000 crore.” Efforts are also being made to increase the annual receipts to around ₹2,500 crore, he said.
