The Hindu : Kerala News : Labour office raids unearth graft

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 11, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Labour office raids unearth graft

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, AUG. 10. The Vigilance Department has stumbled upon 24 cases of "deliberate under-valuation" of the cess to be paid by building owners as remittance to the Construction Workers Welfare Fund set-up by the State Government.

The "under-valuation" came to light during the Vigilance inspection of District Labour Offices in the State on Monday. The Assistant Labour Officers (Grade-I) in each district are responsible for fixing the cess to be remitted by building owners to the Welfare Fund.

False reports

The cess is determined on the basis of the plinth area of the building and the cost of the materials used for construction. In the case of 24 relatively new buildings in different parts of the State, it was noticed that the officials responsible for fixing the cess had "falsely reported" the plinth area of the building and the cost of the materials used for construction in order to reduce the cess. The "false" reporting had resulted in a loss of more than Rs. 7 lakh to the Government and caused undue pecuniary advantage to the building owners, an official said.

Suspect buildings

The "fraud" came to light when Vigilance officials re-inspected the "suspect" buildings with the help of Government engineers. The sites that were inspected include shopping malls, auditoriums, a five star hotel in Kochi, a flat complex in Kozhikode, posh houses and a jewellery showroom in Thrissur.

In one telling case, the Labour official who determined the welfare fund cess had reported an eight- storey building as a six-storey one. Showrooms, houses and hotels with marble flooring were shown in files as buildings with cement flooring. In many cases, the welfare fund cess of buildings was seen reduced without citing proper reason.

The Vigilance are all set to inspect 50 more "suspect" building sites in different parts of the State. A top Vigilance official said the owners of the buildings would also be booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The raid was led by the DIG (Vigilance), S. Ananthakrishnan.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala