Safety measures at illegal building sites a grey area

The safety of workers at construction sites, especially of non-CREDAI registered developers, is a huge worry, Confederation of Real Estate Developer’s Association of India (CREDAI) national president (elect) and member of the labour welfare board Satish Magar told media. Unless a mechanism is in place to register workers from such sites their complete safety cannot be ensured, he added. The state labour department announced the registration of construction workers after an illegal slab on the 13th floor of a building in Balewadi collapsed and killed nine workers on June 29, 2017. It issued guidelines under the Building and Other Constructions Workers Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act 1996 (BOCW). CREDAI members have promised to follow the guidelines, but there is no monitoring system in the outskirts of the city where unauthorised construction is rampant. “Among the 11 lakh workers, nearly 35,000 registrations are from Pune. Every developer should ensure that all the construction workers on his site are registered and use the safety kits that developers provide,’’ Magar said.