SHILLONG, July 28: To address the problem faced by labourers registered for payment under the Chief Minister’s Relief Against Wage Loss (CRAWL) a scheme for those wage earners and small traders affected by the lockdown, a series of steps have been taken by the Labour department on Wednesday.
The CRAWL Scheme was launched in April 2020 to extending financial help at Rs 700 per week to the affected individuals and the amount is to be transferred to the respective bank accounts of the beneficiaries.
According to Principal Secretary Labour, GHP Raju, from the 1.81 lakh registered labourers about 33,000 claimants have either furnished wrong names, or bank IFSC Code or wrong bank accounts. Hence their payments could not be credited by the respective banks through the RTGS mode where they hold accounts. This has delayed their payments.
To address this delay the Labour Officers under every Block Development Office will set up facilitation centres to assist the registered labourers by identifying them from their original documents, to also ascertain who amongst them have received the assistance partially or not received any assistance at all.
Raju also informed that the banks in all the Blocks have been asked to set up Bank Adalats to enable the claimants to speed up their Know Your Customer (KYC) identification process.
“This will enable the Labour Department to pay the amounts regularly to registered labourers under the CRAWL Scheme. As a Department we are concerned about the plight of labourers who have lost their jobs during this pandemic and we are trying our best to smoothen the process,” Raju said, adding that once the system is in place there will be no remiss.
TUR suspends Secretariat protest
Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR) leader Angela Rangad on Wednesday suspended her protest in front of the Secretariat over the alleged discrepancies in the CRAWL scheme after the government assured to look into her concerns.
Rangad’s decision to suspend the protest till August 15 was made after her two-hour meeting with Labour Principal Secretary GHP Raju along with representatives of domestic workers, hawkers, labourers and tax drivers from some localities of Shillong.
The discrepancies in the implementation of CRAWL and BOCW (Building and Other Construction Workers) income support 2020 were highlighted and clarifications and actions were sought from the government in the meeting.
“Specific decisions arrived at with regards to CRAWL included a time-bound recheck of the list of 2,100 beneficiaries the government claims to have given the assistance to. We have asked if the government received proper reports from the banks since last year on a daily or weekly basis regarding the transfers made,” Rangad said.
The delegation also asked the government to check why those who applied and met the criteria were not listed and get in touch with them to explain why they were rejected.
The government said the banks have been asked to immediately update the list of those who have received partial payment and verify the remaining 32,000 legitimate beneficiaries who have not received any support till date. The physical verification will take place in all the districts and a weekly progress report on the transfers will be provided to the public, the government assured.
With regard to the BOCW entitlement of some 5,000 people, the delegation insisted on correcting the anomalies and reverifying to ensure all registered labourers receive the prescribed amount in full. The delegation pointed out many labourers were unable to renew their registration of Rs 10 last year.
The delegation also insisted that for both CRAWL and BOCW, there should be a portal showing the names of the beneficiaries so that they can check their names and status of entitlements themselves.
