Building Workers as Beneficiaries and the Welfare Fund

In one line

A building worker between eighteen and sixty who has worked ninety days in the past year is registered as a beneficiary, and the cess collected on construction is paid into a Fund that pays for his benefits.

In exam wording: section 106 of the Code on Social Security 2020 requires every building worker who has completed eighteen but not sixty years of age and has been engaged in building or other construction work for not less than ninety days during the preceding twelve months to be registered as a beneficiary by the officer authorised by the Building Workers' Welfare Board, section 107 provides for cessation of that status, and section 108 constitutes the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Fund.

Why the law has this at all

Because the cess by itself does nothing for anybody. Section 100 collects money from construction; these three sections decide who is entitled to it and what it may be spent on.

The mechanism is registration, and that is the crucial design choice. A building worker's entitlement is not tied to any employer. He registers with the Board, and he stays a beneficiary while he keeps working in the trade, whoever he happens to be working for. That is the only way a scheme can follow a workforce that changes employer every few weeks.

Notice the consequence, because it is the point of the whole Chapter: an unregistered building worker gets nothing, however many years he has worked and however much cess his employers have paid. The right is created by the registration, not by the work.

Some words this chapter uses

Beneficiary here is the statutory status created by registration under section 106. Cessation is the ending of that status. Fund means the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Fund constituted by section 108. Grant is money given without a requirement to repay; a loan must be repaid. Administrative expenses are the costs of running the Board rather than of paying benefits.

Section 106: registration as a beneficiary

Every building worker:

• who has completed eighteen years of age;
• but has not completed sixty years of age; and
• who has been engaged in any building or other construction work for not less than ninety days during the preceding twelve months,

shall be registered by the officer authorised by the Building Workers' Welfare Board as a beneficiary, in the manner prescribed by the Central Government.

Four points worth holding.

Registration is mandatory, not discretionary. The section says "shall be registered". A worker who meets the conditions is entitled to registration.

The lower limit is eighteen. Below that a person is not a beneficiary, which fits the prohibition on employing young persons in building work under the OSH Code.