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India’s Labours and Issues
Context
A recent incident of death of a construction-site labour has highlighted the severe risks faced by such workers.
Issues faced by construction labours:
- Daily Struggles on Construction Sites: Work on construction sites begins early and extends into the evening, even in extreme weather. Basic amenities like clean water, sanitation, and electricity are often missing. Falling ill means losing a day's wage, which can be a significant setback.
- Gender Disparities in Employment: Women face additional challenges. Unlike men, who can diversify into tasks like painting and carpentry, women often perform repetitive, lower-paid tasks like transporting materials.
- Housing and Wage Issues: Many workers live on-site while working on long-term projects. Wage disparities persist, with certain jobs, like Plaster of Paris (PoP) work, paying less despite their importance.
- Deaths: The state's neglect of these workers by not providing basic safety facilities at construction sites and not enforcing safety equipment regulations leads to frequent deaths in the construction industry.
- Other issues: lack of paid leaves, bonded labour, delayed payments, poor working and living conditions, climate change (heatwaves) and others.
Significant Role of Construction Labourers in the Economy
- Construction labourers are part of the unorganized sector, lacking formal job offers, gratuity, and other benefits that organized sector employees receive.
- More than 70 million individuals are engaged in India’s construction sector
- The construction industry is crucial to the Indian economy, expected to employ over 100 million people by 2030, with 80% being unskilled labourers.
- The industry contributes to 5% of GDP and 8% of capital formation.
As the backbone of urban development, these workers deserve significant interventions and robust protections to ensure their health, dignity, and financial well-being.
Fact Box:Existing Legislation for Workers
Government Schemes
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PYQQ: Discuss the changes in the trends of labour migration within and outside India in the last four decades. (2015) |
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