Inspection of new buildings on

 MALDA, Jan.9: Having failed to collect contributions to the Mason Welfare Fund from the new building owners in the English Bazaar municipality, the office of the assistant labour commission in Malda has started spot verification of buildings under construction. The assistant labour commissioner said that the inspectors have already issued notices to three owners of the buildings and given them a seven-day dead line to show papers detailing whether they have paid cess (tax) on the estimated cost of their buildings according to the government's order.

The government guidelines state that the civic body will approve the building plan only when the building owners contribute one percent cess to the Mason Welfare Fund. The civic body will not pass the building plan before the deposit of this amount. Since the English Bazaar Municipality has not deposited its contribution through the new building owners by the normal means of collection, the Malda district labour department has decided to start a direct case against the building owners, not dependant upon the civic body.

Since Wednesday, the inspectors of the Malda labour department have inspected two residential-cum-commercial buildings under construction at Sunny Park in ward no 24, as well as one hotel building, and subsequently issued notices to both. “We have issued notices to them, asking that they show their required papers and prove that they have paid cess to the civic body before approval of their building plans can be carried through. If they do not show proof of cess paid we can start a case against them for depositing cess on the estimated value of their building”, said Mr. P P Das, the assistant labour commissioner in Malda. “If building owners do not contribute cess to the civic body, they can directly contribute it to the labour department”, Mr. Das added. Mr Dulal Sarkar, the vice chairman of the English Bazaar civic body, earlier claimed that a collection of Rs.2.50 cess would be soon deposited to the labour department, but no amount has been deposited to date. n SNS