The exploitation of migrant Construction Workers has grown alongside the expansion of the industry. It's time the government got serious about upholding the law. A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India. For...

-The Hindu If only laws could eliminate all that they prohibit, India would have been free of the scourge of manual scavenging decades ago. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, which is to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament, is another attempt to prevent employment of people in the cleaning, handling or carrying of human excreta. Despite the renewed stress on rehabilitation in the...

-The Times of India Ramgarh: A team of officials from Union ministry of rural development visited the Maoist-hit villages of Mandu block on Friday and expressed satisfaction over implementation of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in remote villages of the district. The central team headed by rural development ministry joint director N Murugnanam along with state MGNREGA commissioner Satish Kumar and Ramgarh DC visited Burhakhap, Ambatand...

They prefer to migrate to cities to earn a livelihood ‘Apply for work, get work, and get paid on time.' This is how the Union government's scheme promising 100 days of guaranteed work in a financial year to a rural household took off in 2006. However, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) has failed to come as a relief for people especially those in drought-hit regions of the...

Job card holders say they did not get wages   Residents of villages in Seege Gram Panchayat in Hassan taluk alleged at a social audit meet here on Saturday that there were irregularities in the implementation of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The Bangalore-based Association for Social Transparency, Rights and Action (ASTRA), a non-governmental organisation, conducted the audit, and employees from the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat...