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A recent audit report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has exposed major irregularities in the registration and welfare disbursement for construction workers in Delhi during the previous government's tenure. Despite a welfare corpus exceeding INR 3,500 crore accumulated between 2019 and 2023, the spending on actual welfare schemes remained alarmingly low. The report also uncovered issues such as incomplete and duplicate worker data, suspected ghost registrations, and discrepancies in cess collection records.
Delhi Chief Minister Amt Rekha Gupta presented a CAG audit report in the Assembly last week, shedding light on significant irregularities in the functioning of the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Welfare Board under the earlier government. The audit reviewed operations from 2019 to March 2023, revealing poor registration practices and low welfare spending despite substantial available funds. Advertisement
The report noted that although 6.96 lakh construction workers were stated to be registered, the board maintained complete data for only 1.98 lakh individuals. Even within that set, 1.19 lakh beneficiaries were matched to 2.38 lakh images raising red flags over possible ghost registrations and duplicate records. Audit findings highlighted multiple issues, including images without faces, multiple images for one individual, and instances of the same face being registered more than once, pointing to a faulty registration mechanism.
Further, only 7.3% of workers had renewed their registrations over the four-year period far below the national average of 74%, suggesting weak oversight and continuity failures.
The audit also exposed serious inconsistencies in the handling of welfare cess. As per law, companies are mandated to contribute 1% of construction costs towards the welfare fund. However, discrepancies of INR 204.95 crore were observed between the cess amounts reported by district authorities and those recorded by the Welfare Board. No reconciliation of these figures had taken place, reflecting poor financial governance. The report found instances of incorrect cess assessments, under-collection, and non-realisation of due amounts.
By March 2023, the Board had a total fund pool of INR 3,579.05 crore. However, annual expenditure on welfare schemes remained between 9.53% and 11.33% of total receipts, with the exception of 2021-22, when ex gratia support was disbursed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Outside this emergency response, the government failed to channel a significant share of its resources toward actual worker welfare.
Additionally, no reliable system was in place to assess, track, or ensure timely collection and usage of the cess, further weakening the Board's operational accountability.
Source PTI
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