Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday emphasized the need to expedite the process of registration of workers so that they could avail the benefits of the state government’s labour welfare schemes.
Altogether 11 lakh workers are registered with the state labour resources department, but their number must be higher. The labour department should organize camps to register unregistered workers,” Nitish said while inaugurating the Dashrath Manjhi Institute of Labour and Employment Studies in Patna.
He also launched a ‘Chikitsa Sayahta Yojana’ (medical assistance scheme) for registered construction workers. They will be provided Rs 3,000 per year for medical treatment. “Our state occupies a prominent place in the country in terms of labour resource. A number of people used to migrate to other states earlier in search of livelihood, but now the migration rate has declined due to the efforts made by the government,” the CM said.
Recalling the contributions of Dashrath Manjhi in the presence of his son Bhagirath Manjhi, the CM said, “Dashrath Manjhi is known as the ‘Mountain Man’ because of his hard work in building a road by cutting a mountain for at least 20 years. He didn’t want people to die like his wife due to inaccessibility of medicare.
The inauguration was followed by signing of MOUs between the labour resources department and Chanakya National Law University-Patna and V V Giri National Labour Institute- Noida. The educational institutions will provide support to the Dashrath Manjhi institute for promoting research in labour laws and launching certificate and diploma courses in labour and allied subjects.