Building workers’ registrations with board see a fourfold jump in three years; many said to be ‘bogus’ entries

Registrations of Karnataka's construction workers with the Board increased 4x in 3yrs, largely due to bogus registrations. 22 districts have >1L registrations, with Haveri's increasing from 44,911 to 2.86L. Govt & unions agree pre-registration verification was lax. ₹1,970cr used for COVID-19 assistance. Renewal process now stringent, but online reg must be done at Labour Dept offices & by unions for verification. Govt to increase quantum of cess collected annually.

In three years, the registration of construction workers with the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board has seen a nearly a fourfold increase, a large number them said to be bogus registrations to avail of facilities.

While the board’s membership in 13 years between 2007 and 2019 was 9.5 lakh, the numbers drastically increased by 36.91 lakh between 2020 and 2023. Currently, the membership is pegged at 46.42 lakh. While 7.94 lakh registrations took place in 2020, the registrations increased by 12.86 lakh in 2021 and 11.95 lakh in 2022. So far in 2023, 4.14 lakh people have registered.

The steep increase, both government and central trade unions acknowledge, was mainly due to bogus registration during the BJP government’s tenure when the pre-registration verification remained lax. The extent of the increase is such that while in 2020 only Shivamogga had registration exceeding a lakh, after online registration was introduced, 22 districts have more than one lakh registrations. Haveri, the home district of the former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, saw a steep increase — from 44,911 in July 2020 to 2.86 lakh in April 2023.

“Membership, which was confined to the construction workers, became attractive to others too as the quantum of financial assistance for various programmes increased. The start of the online registration process in 2019 increased opportunities for non-construction workers to register with fake documents,” K. Mahantesh, general secretary of the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers Federation, told The Hindu.

By July last year, when the total registrations were 37.75 lakh, as many as 27.39 lakh registrations had come from the Seva Sindhu portal alone. While manual registration accounted for just 3.5 lakh, the registration on the Karmika portal was about 6.86 lakh. “Despite many petitions seeking an investigation into fake registration through Seva Sindhu, the government turned a blind eye,” Mr. Mahantesh said.

Distress during the COVID-19 pandemic added to more registrations. While the BJP government’s efforts to utilise the board’s money for pandemic control failed, about ₹1,970 crore was utilised for COVID-19 assistance by the board.

“The DBT transfers to beneficiaries made it attractive and big money was available with the board. Cards have been issued rampantly across the State. More than 36 lakh cards were issued during the BJP government’s tenure. For example, in Haveri, there are nearly 2.9 lakh cards whereas there are only 2.5 lakh households,” a senior Labour Department source said.