Puducherry CM V Narayanasamy asks entrepreneurs to fill vacancies in industries with locals

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Thursday called on industrial entrepreneurs in the Union Territory to ensure that 70 percent of the posts in various categories in industries, which are now vacant after migrant workers left for their native places, were filled by employing local youth.

Addressing reporters here, the Chief Minister said hundreds of migrant workers stranded in the Union territory during the COVID-19 lockdown had returned to UP, Bihar and several other states following which vacancies had arisen in the industries in different categories of employment. "I have asked the industrial entrepreneurs to fill 70 percent of the vacant posts by recruiting local candidates. If necessary training can be given to the locals," he said.

Narayanasamy flayed the Centre for 'letting down' the Union Territory without sanctioning funds to meet its fiscal commitments. The CM said, "I am really surprised to see that neither the Prime Minister, the Union Finance Minister nor the Home Minister have replied to my letters seeking allocation of funds as the territorial administration is hit by fall in revenue due to lockdown during the last two months." He pointed out that a full fledged budget was also going to be presented for the fiscal 2020-2021 in the territorial Assembly. "We are still left high and dry with the Centre turning a deaf ear to our repeated pleas for allocation of funds particularly the one to compensate the loss arising out of GST implementation," he said.

Taking strong exception to the Centre's move to privatise distribution of power in Puducherry, he said, "This is utterly unacceptable and the Centre should not take any decision arbitrarily without consulting the Puducherry government."

Extending full support of the government to the ongoing protests by the power staff against the plan of the Centre to open up power distribution in Puducherry, the Chief Minister said, "the staff should hold all their agitations only against the Centre and not against Puducherry government. We will always stand in solidarity with the genuine concerns of the power staff."