The Maharashtra government will come up with a new application to automatically verify whether registered labourers are genuine, state Labour Minister Suresh Khade said on Wednesday. The minister added that the application is being developed in view of complaints from district-level officers that some people have registered themselves as proxy labourers on the websites of the state government.

“Once the new system is in place, this issue will be sorted out,” he told reporters. There are nearly 50 lakh registered labourers in various factories in the state, while the number is 1.5 crore in the unorganised sectors. “Among them, 1.32 crore are born in Maharashtra,” Khade said, adding that 17 lakh construction labourers are registered with the department and 4.50 lakh as house helps.