In Punjab, hardly 2% of over 2.55 lakh registered units functional

Sanjeev Verma | TNN | May 5, 2020, 12:39 IST

Police officers stop people travelling on a scooter, car during an extended nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease in Chandigarh. (File photo)

Police officers stop people travelling on a scooter, car during an extended nationwide lockdown to slow the sp...Read More

CHANDIGARH: Out of over 2.55 lakh industries registered in Punjab, only 7,116 have been able to start their operations amid Covid-19 curfew in the state till Monday. The state government, on the basis of applications received from various industrial units, has permitted 7,116 industrial units to engage over 2.04 lakh workers.
However, over 8.29 lakh people, most of them migrant workers, requested the Punjab government till Monday evening to facilitate their return to their home states. Therefore, operating these industrial units will be a major challenge.

Given the extraordinary circumstances, the Punjab government had even written to the Central government to allow it to hire workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as labourers in farms during the wheat harvesting or in grain markets during the ongoing wheat procurement. There are over 5 lakh workers under MGNREGA in the state. But the state industries department has no plan to hire them in industrial units so far. Director, industries and commerce Sibin C reasoned, “Most industrial units hire skilled manpower, so it becomes difficult to employ a layman in these industries.” The director said as of now it was difficult to quantify the exact affect on industries. He said there were lesser chances of those industries which are already functional or paying salaries to its workers losing the manpower. “But workers who are jobless or without pay would definitely move to their home and it would at least take three to four months for them to return back to Punjab,” he added.
The 20-member task force constituted by the state government had recommended that it was critical to ensure that the manufacturing chain, especially of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), is not broken. MSMEs employ over 24.8 lakh workers in Punjab. Ludhiana is the worst affected district where out of the 95,202 industries registered, only 3,240 are operational with a work force of 95,027. Over 4.67 lakh migrant workers from Ludhiana have registered with the state government to return to their home states. Association of Ludhiana Machine Tools Industry general secretary Manjit Singh Matharoo said, “There is uncertainty in business as of now. Nobody knows the end result.”