Units in red, bizmen’s wards look for greener pastures abroad

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 21

For the past two years, manufacturer Suba Singh had been trying to convince his younger son to stay in India and join his business. Now, he has given up. His son, a business graduate, has made up his mind to move abroad.

“There’s nothing left here,” Suba Singh’s son says with a shrug of resignation.

This is the usual refrain of Punjab youth, who are moving abroad in search for better opportunities. The reasons for immigration are many: farm distress, unemployment and lack of resources, etc.

In Suba Singh’s case, the culprit is the “abysmal” condition of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in the country.

“I have seen glorious days in my business. But over the years, the sales dwindled, thanks to anti-industrial policies of the Central and state governments,” says Suba Singh, president of the Industrial Estate Extension Welfare Society.

He is not the only one whose son is moving abroad. There are many like him. Several manufacturers and traders have shut their businesses, and their children are well settled in foreign lands.

Ravinder Dhir, president of a sports forum, says several units in the industrial area, focal point, industrial estate, leather surgical complex, Gadaipur and Dhogri road have been shut.

Suba Singh had started a pipe-fitting unit in 1999 and shut it down in 2014. Later, he started a manufacturing unit of insulator parts. It is not doing good either. His unit is running at less than half of its capacity; the production is only 30 per cent.

“Government policies are not in favour of the industry. Businessmen are facing the problem of liquidity. The working capital is stuck with the GST Department. Be it any department — the Municipal Corporation or the electricity or the industries — complex formalities are not conducive for the business,” Suba Singh claims.

He says that at one point of time, his sales were Rs20 crore; now, the sales have reduced to about Rs5 crore. “One of my relatives shut down his pipe fitting unit because of low sales. His sons are now abroad.”

Jalandhar Industrial and Traders’ Association president Gursharan Singh, who had started his unit in 1972, said working capital was lying with the government, affecting the business.

“My elder son worked with me for 15 to 20 years. After experiencing the sorry state of affairs, he went abroad around four years ago. My younger one is also planning to leave. I am also thinking on the same lines,” Gursharan says.

When contacted, Industries Minister Sunder Sham Arora said: “The government is committed to revive the MSME sector even though the economy is going through a recession.”