THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Labour Department, which has set out on the task of collecting building cess dues around Rs 100 crore through a month- long adalat being held across the state, however, is going soft on assessing cess amounting to over Rs 200 crore from the self-financing educational institutions, including, medical colleges owned mostly by religious minorities and pressure groups.It was the other day that Labour Minister Shibu Baby John launched the adalat to collect the cess dues, assessed for the period, from January 1, 1996 to December 31, 2008.The Minister had said that the assessment was made on the residential buildings, flats and other buildings. But he had no inkling about the amount due from the professional self-financing educational institutions.While the Government plans to collect the cess from residential buildings, where majority of them were built by availing of loans at hefty interests, the govt has no qualms in admitting that it has not touched the giant sharks. But it is unjust to point the finger at the new government. It was during the past five years that over 200 self-financing professional educational institutions came up in the state. But the LDF Government had not initiated any step to levy the building cess from these institutions.According to a rough estimate, over Rs 20,000 crore had been pumped into the self-financing educational sector.As major chunk of this amount was spent on construction of buildings, the government could have collected over Rs 100 crore as cess from these institutions alone. Instead, the then government was playing safe by assessing cess on private residential buildings and flats.One percent of the cost of construction is levied as cess on behalf of the Building Construction Workers’ Welfare Board.When pointed out this discrimination to the new Labour Minister, he said it was the responsibility of the previous government. He said that he had to face the music from the builders when he set out on taking action against them. The Building Construction Workers Welfare Board had made it clear that there was a cess due worth Rs 466.65 crore.“The local body institutions, which grant building permits also can collect cess at the time of issuing of permit and claim one percent of the cess. But majority of the local bodies do not have any idea about this rule,” Additional Labour Commissioner Anilkumar told Express.He said that till recently there were only one labour officer at the districts headquarters to make assessment. Only recently the Department assigned one more officer. And these officers had to take up the task along with their routine work. He said that the Finance Minster the other day had approved the creation of 28 Assistant Labour officers posts exclusively for collecting building cess. The Building Construction Workers’ Welfare Board has also offered to extend support to these officers by way of allotting its manpower and vehicles at their disposal.
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