Mahbubnagar: Construction, manufacturing industries face labour crunch

Mahbubnagar: With more than 20,000 migrant laborers working in 3,526 small, medium and large industries and various factories across the erstwhile Mahbubnagar district leaving to their native places, construction and manufacturing sectors in the district are going to face tough time due to non-availability of work force in the coming days.

Workers from Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and other States are working in various industries in the district.

Almost all these workers took passes from the police to return to their native places after the government gave permission for migrant workers to return to their native places.

But now, after both State and Central governments relaxed certain norms and let the small, medium and large enterprises to open up after March 17, these industries are now facing work force crunch to begin their operations in a full-fledged manner.

A senior labor officer from Mahbubnagar said that usually, workers from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have skills to work in pharma, textiles and other industries related with high technology and scientific knowledge, while those from Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand are hard laborers in construction industry and those from Odisha usually works in brick kilns, construction industries, mining, poultry,

spinning mills, rice mills and other sectors.

A few days ago, almost all the migrant workers returned to their native places and now these industries have to face shortage of skilled labour.

For instance, a textile company in Balanagar used to employ 320 laborers in three shifts but now employing only 120 workers and reduced work for only two shifts.

In Jadcherla, a construction company is not finding workers to lay tiles, drills and for planning layouts, due to which many construction projects were put on hold.

Similarly, poultry business in Kalwakurthy is labour scarcity to work in the farms. Brick kilns in Magnoor, Marikal, Narayanpet mandals, which are famous for brick industry, are not working.

Out of the 20,963 migrant labourers, 4,182 had already left to their native places and others are waiting for the government to provide transportation.