Daily
Pioneer: Bhubaneswar: Sunday, June 19, 2016.
Chief
Minister Naveen Patnaik may be credited for announcing many lucrative schemes
to provide financial and material supports for welfare of building and
construction workers, but RTI documents reveal that the Chief Minister has not
ever made budgetary allocation for implementation of the schemes.
In an RTI
reply, the Odisha Building and Construction Workers’ Welfare Board has admitted
that not a single penny has been sanctioned from the State exchequer for
welfare of construction workers.
It is
revealed that the huge money spent on the various schemes is drawn from the
cess collected from contractors, construction companies, etc., and deposited in
the board.
On questions
pertaining registration of the board, the reply furnished to the RTI applicant
stated that though the board has been constituted under Section 18 of the
Building and other Construction Workers’ Welfare Act, it is not a registered
body under the Societies Registration Act.
“Without
allocating funds, the Chief Minister is busy announcing welfare schemes and
publishing advertisements in media. These are false propaganda calculatedly
masterminded by bureaucrats and the BJD for image building purpose,” rued RTI
activist Pradip Pradhan.
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