Rajkot MSMEs are worried as migrant workers head home after nod from govt

Nimesh Khakhariya | TNN | May 2, 2020, 04:25 IST

Rajkot employs over 80,000 migrant workers mainly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar

Rajkot: The union government’s decision to allow migrant labourers to return to their natives has Rajkot’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector worried.
The engineering and small machine parts manufacturing units in and around Rajkot employ over 80,000 migrant workers who are mainly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Industry players said that allowing workers to return to their native, at a time when operations are set to resume after nearly month and a half, will adversely impact production targets and revenues.
Rajkot is the hub of engineering units and employ worker from UP and Bihar in various industries like casting and forging, machine parts and tools manufacturing.
Vice president of Rajkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) Parth Ganatra, who also owns an engineering unit in Metoda GIDC said, “We have paid the workers salary of last one and half months despite nil production. We have also provided them food and fulfilled all their need as per the government direction. Now, when the time has come to start production, if they are allowed to go our business will severely impacted.”
Some unit owners also fear what if the migrant worker on return to work brings along the coronavirus infection with him. This would result in shutting down the entire factory. “This is a wrong policy of government,” said Paresh Vasani, president of Rajkot Engineering Association. “Even after paying the workers for a non-productive month, if our unit don’t start operations, it will be a double loss for us.”
Besides migrant workers from UP and Bihar, labourers from Odisha, Jharkhand and Rajasthan are also working in Rajkot.
Some industrial associations have decided not to allow the workers to go back.
Kishor Tiala, president of Shapar Industrial Association said, “We have asked them not to go back as we have already paid them two month’s salary without work.” There are 1,100 industrial units that have resumed operations in Shapar.