Non resumption of industry, contractual system pacing up migration- labourers

Ludhiana: With a large number of trains starting operations to ferry natives of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, tension among city businessmen has started to increase. On the other hand, some of the migrants who have registered for leaving from the city are blaming non-resumption of the factories and contractual system of wages in factories for opting to move out of the city.
Meanwhile, some city businessmen are of the view that migrants are in a state of panic due to the lockdown and they just want to go back to their families at any cost. As of now there is a large number of the migrants moving out of the city, which include daily wagers and brick-kiln and construction workers and there is a very less number of factory workers leaving the city.
According to Ram Khilawan, a garment worker from Gorakhpur who has registered for travelling back to his home state, “For the past 45 days the factories in which we were working did not open and now when they have got permission to start operations they have only called very less workers to work, citing the reason that they do not have orders. As a result we still do not have any work in our hand to earn our livelihood and all our savings too have been spent during the lockdown, so it’s better to return home.”
He further said, “Contractual system is largely responsible for our plight and thousands of garment workers from UP and Bihar are facing similar situation like us. All of us work on contractual basis under one contractor in different factories and therefore we do not get fixed wages but payment on the basis of number of pieces made by us. As we are not permanent employees of one factory we did not get any financial assistance from anyone during the lockdown like the salaried workers, who managed to get advance salaries.”
Another worker, Ranjan Kumar, also a garment worker who belongs to Deoria, said, “Except for the medium and large-scale hosiery units, everywhere there is a contractual system of wages and a worker is not the responsibility of the factory owner but of the contractor. Though in a normal situation we do get cash advance, which is adjusted in the total earnings we make at the end of the month. But during this unprecedented lockdown we did not get anything except for ration. Moreover, the situation right now is unclear and as per our contractor the hosiery production will not come to normal even till the next one year, so it’s better to return home when there are such uncertainties.”
Meanwhile speaking to TOI, Harish Kairpal, finance secretary of Knitwear Club, said, “Most of the migrant workers who are leaving Ludhiana right now are either the ones working in construction industry and brick kilns. There is a very less percentage of migrants who are factory workers and even then they are leaving. This is because they are in a state of panic as for more than 40 days they have remained indoors. Usually, they would have kept themselves occupied by working for 8-12 hours in factories and earn their livelihood. I think the contractual workers too will stop going in the next few days as factories have started to open and soon they will return back to work.”