AAP seeks financial help for labourers

Chandigarh, June 3

AAP convener Prem Garg has written to UT Adviser Manoj Parida seeking financial assistance for building and construction workers affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown restrictions.

Garg wrote that a significant portion of the city’s population had been directly affected by the second wave of Covid-19. Building and construction workers have been rendered jobless.

He said Aam Aadmi Party requested utilising the funds available with the Chandigarh Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board of the Labour Department for providing immediate financial assistance to construction workers. Several crores of rupees collected as labour cess during the time of sanctioning building plans was unutilised.

Nitin Goyal, chief spokesperson of Aam Aadmi Party, said the labour cess was collected from building owners for this purpose and it was high time for the Administration to release the funds.

AAP General Secretary Vijaypal Singh has facilitated more than 500 construction workers in getting registered. Vijaypal had taken up this issue with the Administration during the first wave of Covid-19 in 2020 and the UT had transferred Rs6,000 to the accounts of registered workers, but no such initiative had been taken during the second wave, Vijaypal said. — TNS