The Punjab government has reconstituted the Punjab Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board (BOCW) under the Code on Social Security, 2020, weeks after admitting that a clerical error had crept into the notification through which the board was originally constituted.
Specifically objecting to schemes such as the Mukh Mantri Mawan Dheeyan Satkar Yojana, he argues that all expenditure from the BOCW fund must be strictly limited to welfare measures allowed under the new Code. The fresh notification, issued by the labour department on August 14, supersedes all earlier orders relating to the constitution of the board. The government said the latest notification was issued to consolidate the original notification of March 17, 2026, and the corrigendum issued on the same day. The Punjab government had earlier maintained that the Labour Welfare Board was validly constituted under the Code on Social Security, 2020, and that the reference to Section 18 of the 1996 BOCW Act in the March 17 notification was only a clerical error. The corrigendum substituted the reference to Section 18 of the 1996 Act with Section 7 of the Code on Social Security, 2020. Critics contend that the Building and Other Construction Workers Act was officially cancelled on November 21, 2025, meaning that certain paragraphs of the fresh government notification now go directly against Sections 7(6) and 164(2) of the new Social Security Code.
The error was noticed immediately and rectified through a corrigendum issued the same day, according to the government.
Walia noted that this section requires the approval of the central government before any additional welfare schemes can be created, and he warned that the government’s move to continue earlier programmes could result in the wrong diversion of funds collected through the construction tax.
