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(k) "Fund" means the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Fund of a Board constituted under Sub-section (1) of Section 24.

5.4 The scheme of the BOCW Act is that it empowers the Central Government and the State Government respectively to constitute the Building and Other Construction Workers' Advisory Committees at the Central and State Level. Section 7 requires every employer in relation to an establishment to which the BOCW Act applies to get such establishment registered. Section 10 makes this requirement mandatory; without such registration the employer of an establishment to which the BOCW Act applies cannot employ building workers.

5.7 There are detailed provisions in Part III of the BOCW Act concerning the safety, health and welfare of the construction workers generally and in reference to specific kinds of activities.

5.8 The scheme of the BOCW Act indicates that the central focus of this statute is the building and construction worker and the welfare of such worker. Clearly the BOCW Act belongs to the genre of labour welfare legislation relatable to Articles 39(e), 42 and 43 of the Constitution of India. The Hon'ble Supreme Court has in Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India explained that such legislation would be straightaway enforceable under Article 21 which enshrines the right to human dignity. It was explained that (SCC p.184): "where legislation is already enacted by the State providing these basic requirements to the workmen and thus investing their right to live with basic human dignity, with concrete reality and content, the State can certainly be obligated to ensure observance of such legislation for inaction on the part of the State in securing implementation of such legislation would amount to denial of the right to live with human dignity enshrined in Article 21."

5.9. The BOCW Act envisages a network of authorities at the central and State levels to ensure that the benefit of the legislation is made available to every building worker. The provisions concerning registration of workers, providing them with identity cards, constitution of Welfare Boards and registration of beneficiaries under the Fund, providing for augmentation of the Fund and specifying the purposes for which the Fund will be used, providing for the safety and health of the worker, making the contravention of the provisions of the statute punishable and entailing penalties for the violator all go to emphasise the primary purpose of the BOCW Act, which is the welfare of the building and construction worker. These aspects of the BOCW Act are sought to be supplemented in considerable measure by the making of the Central Rules in 1998. Detailed rules have been made with regards to particular aspects of safety in construction work and for the health and welfare of the workers.

5.11 The means of generating revenues for making effective the welfare provisions of the BOCW Act is through the Cess Act, which we now proceed to examine.

The Cess Act 1996 6.1 Simultaneous with the enactment of the BOCW Act in 1996, the Parliament enacted the Cess Act. The SOR to the BOCW Act explained that it had been considered "necessary to levy a cess on the cost of construction incurred by the employers on the building and other construction works for ensuring sufficient funds for the Welfare Boards to undertake the social security Schemes and welfare measures." The SOR to the Cess Act noted that "the intention was to make over, after due appropriation by Parliament by law, the proceeds of the cess, to the State Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Boards and the cost of collection not exceeding one per cent of the cess collected to the State Governments to whom it was proposed to delegate the authority to collect the cess."