The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Educate children, workers told

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 08, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Educate children, workers told

Staff Reporter

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

WELFARE TALK: Labour Minister B.N. Bachche Gowda at the inauguration of Bangaloare District Construction Workers’ Convention in Bangalore on Thursday.

BANGALORE: Labour Minister B.N. Bachche Gowda on Thursday urged the construction workers to educate their children as the Government had increased the financial assistance in this regard.

Mr. Gowda was inaugurating the Bangalore District Level Constriction Workers’ Convention organised by Karnataka Rakshak and General Workers’ Union.

He told the workers that the Government had increased the allocation for their welfare.

Aid up

About annual financial assistance, the Minister said that the eligible construction workers could avail financial assistance of Rs. 3,000 for their children studying in SSLC. Earlier, this was only Rs. 700.

Similarly, the financial assistance had been increased to Rs. 3,000 from Rs. 1,000 for PUC, Rs. 3,600 from Rs. 2,000 for ITI/diploma courses, Rs. 3,000 from Rs. 1,500 for degree courses and to Rs. 6,000 from Rs. 5,000 for the postgraduate courses.

Those who get admission to engineering curses will get financial assistance of Rs. 10,000, instead of Rs. 5,000.

Mr. Gowda said out of five crore population of Karnataka, two lakh were from unorganised sector and the Government had taken steps to provide basic facilities to construction workers.

Of the 12 lakh construction workers in the State, three lakh were from Bangalore alone, Mr. Gowda said.

Identity cards

He pointed out that so far 43,000 construction workers had been provided with the identity cards of the welfare board for availing welfare benefits.

The Minister called upon the construction workers to become members of the welfare board by paying a nominal fee of Rs. 10 to avail the benefit of various welfare measures of the Government. He urged the trade union and non-governmental organisations to come forward for registration of construction workers.

Commissioner of Labour Welfare Board Gurudas Bhatt said he expected these conventions to move to district and taluk levels.

Karnataka Rakshak and General Workers Union president G.R. Shivashankar said there were a large number of construction workers in the unorganised sector without identity cards or employment certificates and they were deprived of many basic facilities at construction sites.

These workers did not have job security and the Government should help them in this regard.

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

Karnataka