67% kids of construction workers suffer malnutrition: study

New Delhi, Jul 27 (UNI) About 67 per cent of the children of construction workers in and around Delhi suffer from malnutrition, a latest study has revealed.

The study by Mobile Creches, on the plight of 425 families of construction workers in the city and National Capital Region, brought to light the deplorable conditions under which these workers live.

Workers continue to be deprived of minimum wages, maternity entitlements and old age pension, the study, titled 'Distress Migration: Identity and Entitlements', revealed.

In fact, only one woman out of the entire sample interviewed, recieved minimum wages.

Less than one per cent of the workers were registered with the Delhi Construction workers' Welfare Board and there was no awareness of the Building and others Construction Workers Act, 1996 or the social security benefits from registration.

The study revealed that two thirds of the families stayed less than one year at a construction site and the most recent move, for a majority of workers (58 per cent), was within the NCR from one construction site to another.

Access to basic facilities declined with a move from the village to the city: no one of the families was taking their chuildren to the nearest anganwadi or buying provisions from a ration shop.

At a release function of the study here last evening, a panel of distinguished academicians, activists and civil society groups called for national attention to the impact that forced migration was having on the lives of poor families and especially their children.

''Young children are reared in conditions that violate all human rights and sharply increase vulnerability of families of such work seeking migrants,'' chairperson of Mobile Creches, Anjali Alexander said.

Chairperson of the National Commission for Enterprises in the unorganised sector, Arjun Sengupta called immediate passage of the pending Unorganised Sector Workers' Bill.

''This is an umbrella legislation that can address the social security issues,'' he said.

UNI AR SW CS1840