Doom in boom: Labour pains hobble industry

Significant increase in wages across the sectors have been of little help in overcoming the crunch,though it has improved labourers’ income. There are bumper yields in many crops,several thousand buildings are under construction and many industries are flooded with orders. So almost every labourer has multiple options available. For those who do not want to leave the village,there is NREGS,the game-changer.

The result: Diamond units are going slow in sourcing rough diamonds for polishing even as international market trends are going north after recovering from the recession. Construction contractors are hunting for hands to cope with deadlines; brick manufactures are not in position to meet raw material demand for the booming construction industry and even crops like cotton and groundnut are rotting in farms because of harvest delays.

“We have more than a 30 per cent labour shortage already. Units are compelled to go slow on deals,” says Lalit Thumar,president of the Federation of Diamond Associations of

Gujarat. “The situation is exactly the opposite of what it was two years ago,when global meltdown hit the diamond industry rendering several lakh workers jobless and leading to suicides by the jobless.”

Cut to 2010 December. There has been 35 per cent hike in wages in the same industry,but it still does not have enough takers.

According to Thumar,those who had shifted to farming during the crisis have not come back,given the volatile nature of the diamond sector.

Agriculture sector is no better. “Wages this season have gone up to Rs 140-150 from Rs 60-50 for plucking 20 kg of cotton bolls. Yet,farmers just don’t get enough hands to work on their fields,” says Bhartiya Kisan Sangh president Praful Senjalia. According to him,the drop in the number of migrant labouers and the construction boom have hit the farm labour hard.

“There has been a 100 per cent growth in the construction sector during the last five years,which had almost remained uninterrupted in Gujarat even during the recession. Given such tremendous growth,the need for labour is ever increasing,” said Mukesh Sheth,general secretary of Confederation of Real Estate Development Association of India (CREDA). “Even wages have gone up by 100 per cent. Today,an unskilled worker gets Rs 200 to 250 per day,” he added.

According CREDA,the boom,coupled with the fall in availability of migrant labourers,is taking a big toll. “We have been witnessing a steep fall in migrant labour availability too. The gap is widening,” Sheth said.

“NREGS has been a game-changer. Migrants from tribal regions of Gujarat and neighbouring states like MP and Maharashtra and even UP and Bihar are now finding work at their doorstep,” said Vipul Pandya,secretary,Bandhkam Majdoor Sangh. “When people get around Rs 100 per day in their village,the usual exodus in search of work is going down notably among daily workers,” he said.