Coronavirus: Industries limping back to normalcy with fewer workers

With the government relaxing lockdown restrictions, the industrial activity is limping back to normalcy with about 50-60% of the workforce returning to work.

Large and medium scale industries have restarted their manufacturing operations across several industrial estates in Bengaluru, and other district places. Currently, they are operating only one shift amid a shortage of workers, supply chain disruption and lack of orders and working capital.

In Bengaluru, industries spread across Peenya, Bommasandra, Rajaji Nagar, Anekal, Jigani, and Devanahalli aerospace park have resumed production activities with about 50-60% of their workforce reporting for work. While industries across these industrial hubs have reported that 30-40% of their workers, who had gone back to their native places are yet to come back due to lack of transportation and restriction for inter-state movement.

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The absence of labourers is largely seen among the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Peenya, Bommasandra, Jigani and Anekal, which are bordering Tamil Nadu as thousands of workers come from Hosur and other towns in Tamil Nadu.

The absence of labourers is largely visible with the MSMEs in Peenya and Bommasandra industrial hubs, where the industries are yet to start their operations.

There are about 3.5 lakh MSME units in and around Bengaluru and of these, about 70% of the units have opened their shutters.

However, barely 30-40% of these units are working as the majority of units have no orders and are facing a shortage of raw materials and workers, said R Raju, President, Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association (Kassia).

Some of the large industries that have restarted operations include Toyota, Airbus, Boeing, Dynamatic Technologies, BFW, Bosch, TVS, Volvo and Kennametal among others across Bengaluru. All the industries are currently operating only one shift due to restriction of movement between 7 pm and 7 am.

“Industries have started work with several challenges such as supply chain disruption, shortage of workers, and lack of demand for products in the market. The sentiment is still bad as people are worried about the continuous spread of COVID-19. They are thinking of what will happen next,” T R Parasuraman, President & Deputy Managing Director, Toyota Industrial Engines India and VP, BCICI told DH.

He said around 50-60% of the workers across industries have returned to work. Some of the large industries have deployed special vehicles to bring back their workers from various districts. However, normalcy will return only when the demand cycle becomes normal, he added.

“We have received several complaints about logistics issues that is hampering the return of workers. Now that buses have started plying between the districts, we hope workers will return in the next few days. We are constantly in touch with the industries to facilitate the resumption of normal activities,” Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary, Department of Commerce and Industries said.

Devesh Agarwal, President, BCIC said normalcy will not return if specialised workers like CNC operators come back to work. “What we need immediately is the movement of workers between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka at Hosur. Many of our specialised operators come from Hosur and the government should allow inter-state movement for factories in Bengaluru to restart their normal operations,” he said.