Delhi begins hiring for cashless care covering 2.7 lakh construction workers

The Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board has started the tender that will put a cashless health scheme on the ground for about 2.7 lakh registered construction workers. The Delhi Cabinet approved the design in June. The board now wants an agency in place so services can begin before the end of the year.

Each registered worker is entitled to treatment worth up to ₹2 lakh in a financial year. The cap for a family is ₹10 lakh. Cover includes diagnostics, medicines and hospitalisation at empanelled hospitals. Workers are not supposed to pay at the counter. Outpatient and inpatient care extend to eligible family members: spouse, children and parents. Annual screening is written in for the worker and the spouse.

Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said in June that a dedicated health scheme for this workforce had been missing from the board’s list. The board already runs 17 other welfare schemes, including education and marriage grants, disability pensions and death compensation. Health was the gap that showed up every time a worker fell from a slab or developed a lung problem after years of dust.

What the contractor has to build

The selected agency will run the network of hospitals, clinics and laboratories. It must set up at least six labs in the city to process samples from the annual check-ups. Physical copies of those reports have to reach the worker within seven working days. Medical vans will visit construction sites and other fixed points. The contract also asks for transport from site to hospital when a screening or an emergency requires it.

The screening budget is set at about ₹2,000 for a male worker and ₹2,200 for a female worker, covering 12 to 13 tests. That is a small number next to a ₹2 lakh treatment cap, but it is the part of the scheme that can catch hypertension, diabetes and silica-related damage before they become inpatient bills.

Officials have spoken of nearly 10 lakh people inside the family envelope if dependents are fully enrolled. The ₹200 crore annual spend cited when the Cabinet approved the scheme is the planning figure, not yet an audited outlay. Actual cost will follow how many workers use the hospitals and how many sites the vans can reach in a week.

Registration is the gate

Only workers on the board’s register qualify. Delhi’s construction workforce is larger than 2.7 lakh. Migrants who move between Noida, Gurugram and the city, and workers whose contractors never filed papers, sit outside the scheme until they enrol. The board’s first operational problem is therefore not the hospital list. It is whether the register is current enough that a man on a scaffolding in Rohini can produce an identity the empanelled hospital will accept at 11 p.m.

Cashless cover fails in practice when the hospital asks for a deposit because the software is down or the beneficiary name does not match. The tender will have to spell out who eats that failure, the agency or the worker. The June Cabinet note said the process would be cashless. The August tender is the first chance to put that sentence into a contract with penalties.

If the agency is selected on schedule, screenings can start in the cooler months, when site work in Delhi is at full strength. If the tender slips, the scheme will exist on paper through another winter of uninsured falls and unpaid ward bills. The ₹2 lakh and ₹10 lakh figures are already public. The test is whether a worker can walk into an empanelled hospital in December and leave without opening a wallet.