Missing data delays welfare assistance to 40L workers; trade unions up in arms
Efforts to restore them didn’t pay off. “It will delay the settlements of claims to around 40,000 applicants who have filed for assistance related to education, marriage, etc, “ said the official, preferring anonymity
Representative Image
Shanmugha Sundaram J & G Jagannath
CHENNAI: The replication data of more than 40 lakh members of the welfare boards affiliated with the Labour Department have vanished from the data server maintained by the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA), leading to trade unions raising a red flag.
A month-long effort to retrieve the data ended in vain, leaving the members of the welfare boards high and dry when they sought financial assistance under various welfare schemes and financial aid from the respective welfare boards. This has prompted the members of unorganised workers affiliated with various welfare boards to resort to protest.
Tamil Nadu Auto Rickshaw Workers’ Union (CITU) president M Sivaji said Labour department officials’ revelations of missing data of over 40 lakh workers enrolled in various unorganised workers welfare boards, including construction workers and auto drivers, has come as a rude shock. “With government offices digitalising all data, how is it that only workers’ welfare data have going missing? We want the State government to conduct a proper investigation into the issue,” he demanded.
He said the members of the unorganised workers’ welfare board would not be able to avail financial benefits due to missing data.
He urged the autorickshaw drivers to take part in large numbers in the state-wide protest against the missing data in front of all the labour welfare offices on Tuesday.
A highly placed source in the Labour Department said the database replication of photographs, signatures, ration cards, Aadhaar cards and bank details of registered members of the 18 welfare boards “disappeared” due to a technical snag at the server point. It came to light at the end of December. Efforts to restore them didn’t pay off. “It will delay the settlements of claims to around 40,000 applicants who have filed for assistance related to education, marriage, etc, “ said the official, preferring anonymity.
The data, the official added, is intact with them in Excel sheets. They have communicated to the officials in the districts to get photographs, signatures, and photocopies of ration cards, and Aadhaar cards when the members come for renewal or applying for claims.
“We’re exploring options to avoid such problems in the future,” he said.
Pon Kumar, chairman of the TN Construction Welfare Board, admitted that the loss of data would cause inconvenience to the members. “But it would not affect the registered members’ claim to avail the benefits in any way,” he added.
Officials attached to the Labour Department in districts opined that it would be a herculean task to generate database replication for humongous numbers.
“The server (of the Labour department) has not been up to date to take up such a massive amount of work. Uploading a single file takes several minutes, making it impossible to generate the database replication for thousands of workers. It’s not even helping individuals who are willing to upload the photo and other necessary supporting documents on the web portal of the department,” said an official.
