CAG report exposed irregularities in the registration of construction workers in Delhi, pointing to ghost registrations, duplicate/missing images, and extremely low renewal rates.
Despite the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board having ₹3,579 crore in funds, only 9.53–11.33% of receipts were spent on welfare schemes, barring COVID relief in 2021–22.
The Board lacked reliable data on registered workers, indicating a poor database and mismanagement of beneficiary records.
A discrepancy of ₹204.95 crore was found in cess collected from construction companies, and the government had no system to reconcile or track the cess assessment, collection, or deposits.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta presented a CAG audit report in the Assembly on Monday, highlighting irregularities in the registration of construction workers and indicating low expenditure on their welfare, despite the state government having a substantial fund of over ₹3,500 crore available from 2019 to 2023.
The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India on 'Welfare of Building and Other Construction Workers' (BOCW) covered the four years up to March 2023 under the rule of the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi.
The Delhi government did not have any reliable data relating to the number of BOCWs in Delhi, it said.
The Welfare Board for the BOCWs could provide a complete database of only 1.98 lakh out of 6.96 lakh workers stated to be registered with it.
"Out of 1.98 lakh beneficiaries of various welfare schemes, for whom images were made available to Audit, 1.19 lakh beneficiaries were linked with 2.38 lakh images - more than one image for individual beneficiary," it said, suspecting "ghost" worker registrations.
Also, the availability of duplicate images, images with no faces, and multiple registrations of the same face indicated several "loopholes" in the registration process, the CAG report stated.
In terms of renewals of registrations of the BOCW, Delhi was way behind the all-India performance of 74%. Delhi recorded a renewal of just 7.3% of workers as per the report.
As of March 2023, the Welfare Board for the BOCWs had accumulated funds of ₹3,579.05 crore, it added.
"There was a huge difference in the figures of cess amount collected as per records of cess collectors, district records and the Board. The difference in figures of the cess as per District records and as per the Board for four years amounted to ₹204.95 crore. The differences were not found reconciled," it noted.
The registered companies pay one per cent of the construction cost as cess to the Board for undertaking various schemes for the welfare of the BOCWs.
Also, the Delhi government did not maintain a reconciled database of cess assessed, collected and remitted. It thus lacked a system to ascertain the quantum of cess due and its timely collection, the report found.
"Cases of incorrect assessment, short/deposit/realisation of cess were observed," it noted.
Expenditure on welfare schemes ranged between 9.53 and 11.33% only of the total receipts, except in 2021-22, when ex gratia payments were made to the BOCW to tide over the Covid pandemic period, it added.
