Burial and Ex-gratia Payment Scheme (Unregistered Site Labourers)

What is the Burial and Ex-gratia Payment Scheme for unregistered site labourers?

Burial and Ex-gratia Payment Scheme is a welfare measure of the Labour Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh, operated through the Madhya Pradesh Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (MPBOCWWB). The scheme was introduced in 2014 and is known in Hindi as nirman sthal par karya ke dauran apanjikrit shramik ki mrityu par antyeshti evam anugrah bhugtan, which translates literally as funeral and ex-gratia payment on the death of an unregistered worker during work at a construction site.

The scheme exists to fix a specific gap. Madhya Pradesh's construction workforce is large and highly mobile, and a substantial share of it is never enrolled with the Welfare Board at all. Registration under the Building and Other Construction Workers Act requires a worker to be aged 18 to 60 and to prove 90 days of construction work in the previous 12 months, and to keep that registration live by paying the annual contribution. A daily-wage labourer moving between sites in different districts frequently does none of this. When such a worker died in a fall, a wall collapse or a machinery accident, the family previously had no claim on Board funds because the deceased was not a member.

This scheme removes that bar. Under it, entitlement is triggered by where and how the death happened, not by whether the worker held a registration card. The test is that the person was working at a construction site in Madhya Pradesh at the time of the accident.

What the scheme provides

• Funeral (antyeshti) assistance of Rs 3,000, intended to reach the family immediately so that last rites are not delayed for want of money.
• Ex-gratia of up to Rs 4,00,000 where the unregistered labourer dies as a result of an accident at the construction site.
• Ex-gratia of up to Rs 2,00,000 where the labourer suffers permanent disability as a result of such an accident.

All amounts are one-time payments and are released by Direct Benefit Transfer into the bank account of the sanctioned claimant. Welfare Board benefit rates in Madhya Pradesh are fixed by board resolution and are revised from time to time, so the district labour office should be asked to confirm the rate current on the date of the incident.

Who is eligible under this scheme, and who is not

Covered cases

• The deceased or disabled person was working as a construction labourer at a construction site in Madhya Pradesh at the time of the incident.
• The person was not registered with the Madhya Pradesh Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board on the date of the incident.
• The death or permanent disability was caused by an accident arising out of and in the course of that work, for example a fall from height, a scaffold or wall collapse, electrocution, or being struck by material or machinery.
• The claim is made by a legal heir or dependant of the worker, and the worker's family are residents of Madhya Pradesh.

Not eligible

• Workers who were registered and holding a live MPBOCWWB card cannot apply under this scheme. Their families claim under the Board's regular death, disability and funeral assistance schemes, which pay on their own scale, and a family cannot draw both for the same death.
• A death that did not occur during work at a construction site is not eligible, even if the person worked in construction. A worker who dies at home of illness, or in a road accident while off duty, is outside this scheme; the family should instead look at the Madhya Pradesh unorganised-worker route under Mukhyamantri Jankalyan (Sambal) Yojana.
• Employees of a contractor engaged in work that is not construction within the meaning of the BOCW Act are not eligible.
• A claimant who is not a legal heir or dependant of the deceased cannot apply, however close the personal relationship. The tehsildar's legal heir certificate governs this.
• Duplicate claims by two different relatives for the same death are not eligible; only one sanction is issued per death, and the money is paid to the heir named in the succession record.

There is no income ceiling and no caste or gender restriction attached to this scheme. The eligibility question is entirely about the circumstances of the accident.

What documents are required?

The contractor or employer certificate deserves special attention. Because the worker was never registered, there is no state record connecting the deceased to any employer. If the contractor refuses to give a written statement, the FIR and the site inspection report prepared by the labour inspector or the police become the substitute proof, and the family should ask the labour inspector in writing for a copy.

How to apply for the Burial and Ex-gratia Payment Scheme

1. Report the accident immediately to the police and ensure an FIR is registered naming the construction site. Insist on a post-mortem. Almost every rejected claim in this scheme fails here, not later.
2. Obtain the death certificate from the gram panchayat, nagar palika or municipal corporation where the death was registered, and the post-mortem report from the government hospital.
3. Collect the application form from the office of the Chief Executive Officer, district panchayat, if the site is rural, or from the Commissioner of the municipal corporation or the Chief Municipal Officer of the nagar palika if the site is urban. The district labour office also keeps forms.
4. Get the legal heir certificate from the tehsildar, and a written certificate from the contractor, builder or site engineer confirming the worker's presence at the site on the date of the accident.
5. Fill the form and attach every document, including Aadhaar and a bank passbook copy of the claimant. Keep photocopies of the complete set.
6. Submit the claim within 6 months of the accident or death to the same office that issued the form, and collect a dated acknowledgement with an inward number. Do not leave without this receipt.
7. Follow up on the inquiry. The labour inspector or the CEO's office verifies the site, the employment and the cause of death, then forwards the case for sanction. Ask for the inquiry report number at each visit.
8. Confirm the credit. After sanction the amount is released by DBT to the claimant's Aadhaar-seeded account. Check the bank passbook rather than waiting for a letter.

Where a registered construction worker's family is claiming a Board benefit, the Shram Seva portal at labour.mp.gov.in carries an online claim path using the labour registration number. That path does not fit an unregistered worker, which is why this particular scheme runs offline through the panchayat and municipal route.

How to check the status of a claim

Ask the office where you filed for the inward number of your application, and quote it on every follow-up visit. Madhya Pradesh does not publish an individual online tracker for this scheme, so status is checked in one of three ways:

1. In person at the sanctioning office — the district panchayat CEO's office or the municipal commissioner's office, which holds the file.
2. At the district labour office, which processes the Welfare Board side of the sanction and can say whether the case has been forwarded.
3. Through the CM Helpline on 181, by registering a complaint with the inward number. A CM Helpline case is logged with a serial number, is allocated to the district officer, and cannot be closed without a recorded reply. In practice this is the most effective way to get a stalled file moving.

The Labour Department publishes an aggregate dashboard of Welfare Board sanctions and disbursements at labour.mp.gov.in, which shows scheme-wise totals but not individual claim status.

Why claims get rejected, and how to fix them

• No proof the death occurred at the site. The commonest failure. Fix it by producing the FIR, the police panchnama, the post-mortem report and any site inspection report. Statements from two co-workers at the site, recorded before the labour inspector, are often accepted as corroboration.
• Contractor denies the worker was employed. Ask the labour inspector to record the site visit, and produce wage slips, attendance records, mobile photographs or a Provident Fund entry if any exists.
• Claimant is not the established legal heir. Fix it by obtaining the tehsildar's legal heir or succession certificate before filing, not after.
• The worker was in fact registered. The claim is redirected rather than rejected; the family should refile under the Board's regular death and funeral assistance schemes, which the district labour office will process.
• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, or the account is in a different name from the sanctioned claimant. The sanction stands but the DBT fails. Fix the seeding at the bank branch and inform the sanctioning office in writing.
• Filed after 6 months without explanation. Attach a written delay explanation and ask the sanctioning officer to condone it on record.

Grievance redressal and contacts

• Madhya Pradesh Labour Department helpline: 18002338888
• CM Helpline: 181, for a tracked complaint against a delayed or unanswered claim
• District Labour Office in the district where the construction site is located, which is the first appellate point
• Labour Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh, Indore, for escalation
• Official portal: labour.mp.gov.in

Two practical cautions. First, no fee is payable at any stage, and a contractor or agent asking for a share of the sanctioned Rs 4,00,000 should be reported on 181 immediately. Second, families are often persuaded to accept a private cash settlement from the builder in exchange for not filing an FIR. Doing that destroys the evidence the ex-gratia claim depends on, and the Welfare Board payment is then almost impossible to obtain.