Construction workers' grants 'siphoned off' in Haryana Labour Dept

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, April 28

A number of cases have come to the fore revealing fraudulent monetary claims by unscrupulous elements of government schemes meant for the welfare of the construction labourers registered with the Haryana Building and Other Construction Workers Board (HBOCWB) of the Labour Department.

Wrong entries in PPP format

Hisar ADC Neeraj had also detected some cases in which the Common Service Centre (CSC) operators were preparing Parivar Pahchan Patras (PPPs) by making wrong entries in the format, apparently to seek claims under the government schemes. The police had booked seven persons in this case on April 14

Preliminary inquiries indicated that unscrupulous elements might be hand in glove with some of the employees of the department and the Common Service Centre (CSC) operators in Hisar and other districts.

In one case, an 11-year-old girl from Mewat district had been given the benefit under the Kanyadaan scheme of the department. Details uploaded on the web portal of the HBOCW Board revealed that while the applicant family had taken the benefit for the marriage of the 11-year-old girl, it had uploaded the marriage certificate of her elder sister (not minor) with the documents. But the grant under the scheme had been released in the name of the minor girl.

In another case, a man from a village in Hisar district who had died in 2018, was shown as a registered construction worker four years later, 2022, on the web portal of the Labour Department. Subsequently, another (second) death certificate was generated on April 26, which showed that he had died on February 4, 2023, and took the benefit of Rs 2.15 lakh as per the scheme.

Even the incidents of generating forged QR codes on the fake death certificates have been detected in the department. While the officials of the department are tight-lipped on such cases, activists of the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) have flagged several such cases and reported the matter to the department.

CITU state president Sukhbir Prabhat said there seemed to be an organised network of the unscrupulous persons apparently with the involvement of some department officials not only usurping the grants meant for the genuine workers, but also costing the state exchequer dear.

“We have raised several matters with the officials concerned and are also compiling a report of many other cases. In fact, the web portal has several lacunae and laxities, which are being used by these elements in diverting the grants to the ineligible beneficiaries. Middlemen, be these from the department or private persons, are the major beneficiaries of this scam,” he said, adding that the volume of this scam could not be gauged at this time, but seemed to be of not less than several crores of rupees.

According to the department officials, the software of the online portal of the department has several loopholes which has given the opportunity of pilferage of grants meant for the genuine construction workers. There are about 22 schemes under the HBOCW Board.