Machine tools & machinery manufacturers face 70% labour shortage

Ludhiana: Labour shortage is pinching the machine tools and machinery manufacturers very hard and the industry is missing the opportunity to cater to bulk orders.
Ludhiana is the biggest hub of machine tools and machinery manufacturing in India and has a variety of manufacturers who make products ranging from power presses, hammers, CNC machines, lathes machines, forging presses, etc. Ever since the factories have been allowed to re-open, the machine tool and machinery manufacturers have been getting orders for supply of the machines but due to huge number of migrant workers leaving Ludhiana for their home states, the industry is struggling to complete their orders. According to the industrialists they are facing shortage of 70% labour and situation seems to be deteriorating daily.
According to Manjit Singh Matharoo, general secretary of FICO’s mega machine tool cluster, said, “Machine tools manufacturing industry is in a very serious problem right now due to huge shortage of workers. As of now we are experiencing 70% labour shortage. Unlike other industries we still have some orders in hand but it seems impossible to process these due to non-availability of labour. This unprecedented problem has occurred due to exodus of workers from Ludhiana in the wake of lockdown. Industrialists tried their best to hold the workers back but all our efforts, be it supporting workers financially or doing anything else turned unsuccessful. The government has not done its homework well by allowing everyone to go back from Ludhiana, at least the workers who are earning money by working in the factories and are facing no problems should have been stopped.”
According to Sukhdial Singh Basant of the Association of Ludhiana Machine Tool Industry, “Already, we faced many hardships to open our units, which remained closed for more than 50 days and now this labour shortage is making matters even more worse. As all other sectors of the industry, be it fastener, sewing machine parts or bicycle parts, are dependant on us for their machinery requirements, we have been getting orders from these units for supply. But due to huge shortage of labour we are unable to process the orders for machinery and their parts.”
Major Singh, treasurer of Association of Ludhiana Machine Tool Industry, “Our industry has already suffered huge losses after remaining shut for almost two months and now we are even losing out on precious orders, which is adding to our woes. Due to this situation we are under a huge threat of losing out the business to our competitors based in other states, where the labour availability is better than in Punjab.”