New Delhi, Sept. 13 -- With about Rs.77,000 crore in the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) cess corpus, the Centre has asked states to assess how the money is being used and identify new avenues to deploy it for workers' long-term welfare, including pension and social security.

Union labour minister Mansukh Mandaviya made the call at a national conference of BOCW stakeholders in Mumbai on Friday, where he also flagged the possibility of providing pension support to construction workers and urged states to ensure wider social security coverage, a release in this regard said.

The BOCW cess is a levy collected from construction establishments to fund welfare schemes for construction workers.

The country has more than 7 crore ...