Noida: The district administration has given the labour department 10 days to visit construction sites and submit a compliance report on crèche facilities.On Aug 18, the administration directed all construction sites employing 50 or more workers to set up crèches, as mandated under Section 24(3) of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, within 15 days. It said crèches must be located at places easily accessible to construction workers and employees and away from dust, smoke and other hazards associated with construction activity.The order also required the facilities to be clean and hygienic, with adequate toilets, proper ventilation, sufficient lighting and access to safe drinking water.On Saturday, district magistrate Medha Roopam said the labour department has now been asked to draw up a compliance report after the deadline for construction sites to set up crèches lapsed. “I have asked officials to visit each site and draw up a detailed report on compliance within 10 days,” Roopam said. “Inspections will seek to establish how many construction sites have complied with the directive, how many crèches have actually been set up and whether they are operational.” Officials will also check whether the facilities meet the requirements prescribed under the order.The directive to set up crèches was issued after a seven-year-old girl, living in a jhuggi around a mall under construction in Ghaziabad, was raped and brutally murdered by two labourers on July 11. A TOI report, ‘At Gzb rape-murder site, kids are on their own’, on July 19, had subsequently highlighted how children at the site were being left unattended and vulnerable as their parents went to work from 9 am to 5.30 pm. The report also found that migrant worker families living in makeshift settlements nearby had no access to supervised or safe spaces for their children and were often left under the supervision of an older child.A labour department official told TOI that there are multiple construction sites in Noida and their main task will be to identify which of these employ 50 or more workers. “After the report, the administration will determine the action to be taken against developers who fail to meet the 15-day deadline,” the official said.While the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code does not specifically mention any penalties for failure to provide a crèche, Section 94 (general penalty for offences) prescribes Rs 2 to Rs 3 lakh in penalty for contravention of the Code. It states that if the contravention continues after conviction, an additional penalty of up to Rs 2,000 per day can be imposed for every day the contravention continues.Meanwhile, several builders that TOI spoke with claimed they were unaware of the DM’s notice. A spokesperson from Greater Noida-based Jindal Alfatech Realty said the firm was not carrying out any construction in the city at the moment. “We are also not aware of such a notice from the administration, but we will now take the work up,” the official said.
