Railway portal to regulate min wage for contract workers helped disburse over Rs 3,459 crore in two years

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A portal developed to guarantee minimum wages for contractual workers of the Indian Railways has ensured the disbursal of more than Rs 3,459 crore as salaries over the last two years, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The Shramik Kalyan e-application was developed and launched on October 1, 2018 to ensure that contractors comply with the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act and that contractual workers working on daily wage basis in the Indian Railways get their rightful due by enforcing the contractors to regularly upload wage payment data.

"This helps Railways as principal employer to keep vigil over wages disbursed by contractors to contract workers. As on March 9, 2021, a total 15,812 contractors and total 3,81,831 contract workers are registered on this portal," the statement said, adding that Rs 3,49,590 lakh (more than Rs 3,495 crore) wage amount and about six crore man-days are also registered on this portal across Indian Railways.

All PSUs working under the Ministry of Railways are also using this e-application.

The portal enables contractors of different units of the Railways to register themselves on the e-application and subsequently add work orders issued by different Railway units to them. The contractors have to create a profile of each contract worker engaged by him for the work and update the wages provided to him on a regular basis. There are checks in the portal to ensure that wages paid by the contractors conform to minimum wages fixed by the government, the ministry said.

Before clearing the contractors' bills, it is ensured that wage data of the contract workers have been uploaded on the e-application. For ensuring compliance of the same, necessary changes have also been made in the contract conditions, it added.

Provisions are available in the e-application to generate IDs for contract workers and also to send SMSs time to time about wages paid to them, contribution made to EPF and ESIC, the statement said.

For transparency, a summary of details like the number of active work orders, workers engaged and gross wages paid to them till date across various Railway units is also put up on the portal, it said.