Train resumption raises hopes for Vellore industries

Though the Centre has announced that the returning migrant workers would be employed in their home towns under the MGNREGS, “they will not earn as much wages as they were in TN,” a Ranipet based entrepreneur said.

However, the absence of migrant workers is already being felt in both government and private sector works in the district, officials said. Vellore Corporation’s smart city works – Rs 640 crore works in 24 clusters at the old and new bus stands, multi-level car parking in two locations, reconstruction of the town’s Nethaji Market and storm water drain works on Anna Salai – are expected to run behind schedule by as much as four months due to the lockdown and the absence of migrant workers, informed Corporation officials.

“Two major contractors, short of 30 migrant workers each, have already sought replacements while we will also bring in labourers from neighbouring Tiruvannamalai district if necessary,” a senior official averred. Employing replacements would be done after medical checks, sources said.

Managers of a private hospital under construction in Vellore, whose completion was pushed back by four months as 500 of its 700 migrant workers left, said that “Arrangements were under way to hire local workers. But, the fear was that local labourers might demand more knowing that workers were in short supply.”

But, it is SIDCO and SIPCOT in Ranipet which miss migrant workers badly, because of their ability to work long hours without demanding extra money, an entrepreneur said. “They will easily do the work of three people and all that they demand in return in being allowed to purchase food needs. They do not make extra demands,” he added.

It is in such a scenario that railways planning to run train services from June 1 has come as a boon to them.