Industries face labour shortage as wheat harvesting season kicks off

With the onset of the harvesting season in the region the industry has started feeling the pangs of labour shortage as many workers have switched to working in farms for two months. Industrialists maintain that 25-30 per cent of their labour has already told them they would be on leave till the end of May.

The president of ATIU and owner of a sheet metal unit in Phase VI of Focal Point, Pankaj Sharma, said the industry had started feeling the pinch of labourers picking farms over factory units. “Industrialists provide salaries to the labourers on the 7th or 8th of every month. This month many workers collected their salaries and disappeared, while a few came up with some excuses like having to go home for family exigencies. The fact remains that for the coming two months, most of our labourers would be working for landlords to harvest wheat,” said Sharma.

Another industrial from DD Castings, Sanjiv Gupta, said that the industry faces the problem of labour shortages every year. “To counter such issues, we need to focus on switching towards automation. The lesser the dependency on manpower, the lesser the industry will suffer. We can go for low cost robots, which can help in welding. We are seriously thinking of solutions to counter labour pangs,” said Gupta.

Many industrialists also held Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) schemes responsible for the loss of labour interest in the state. “When they start getting free wages in their native villages, why would they come to us? These schemes should be stopped, otherwise these will leave a dent on industrial growth,” said Vineet Gupta from TCG Forgings. Gupta said that they had already lost 30 per cent of the workforce and the situation was only going to worsen in coming days. Most factories will have to shut one shift due to labour shortages, he added.