SN Subrahmanyan, Chairman and Managing Director of India, highlighted one of India’s biggest challenges while speaking at Chennai’s CII Mystic South Global Linkages Summit. Indian laborers are reluctant to relocate themselves from their comfort due to welfare schemes and comfort preferences, Subrahmanyan remarked at the summit.
Let’s find how what SN Subrahmanyan remarked on Indian Labourers. Why Workers Don’t want to move from their comfort space. What other SN Subrahmanyan said, Let’s find out in this article.
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SN Subrahmanyan Highlighted India’s Biggest Challenge.
SN Subrahmanyan, CEO and Managing Director (MD) of Larsen and Toubro seemed to represent the challenge in India to relocate laborers to the work spot. He addressed the worker shortage in the construction industry and commented the rest of the world grapples with a large number of migrants, while India has a peculiar problem of people unwilling to move to work.
While speaking at the CII South Global Linkages Summit in Chennai, Subrahmanyan said, “We have to employ 4 lakh laborers and the attrition rate is three to four times a year, so for employing 4 Lakh laborers we employ 1.6 million”. He further added, “The laborer mobilization has completely taken a new look. To get carpenters to the new site, the company sends messages to the lists of carpenters it’s working or has worked in the past, and most importantly workers decide whether to take the job or not”.
“That is a method of mobilization. But at the same time imagine not to mobilize 1.6 million people every year. So we have created a separate department called HR for labor which does not exist in the company but it does exist. And sometimes I even sit on that, “He said.
“We have a database of 4 million people with us, their names, their Jan Dhan bank account, their Aadhaar number, the village they come from, their skillsets. There is a site in the western part of the country, where I am supposed to mobilize 50,000 laborers. I need people, but they are not willing to come, “He added.
Why Workers Don’t Want To Relocate To Cities?
According to Subrahmanyan, the workers are not willing to leave their comfort places for various reasons, and he imposes the reason on the government’s various schemes profiting the laborers in villages. He said, “People are reluctant to come for several reasons, because of the bank accounts (Jan Dhan), the direct benefit transfers, Garib Kalyan Yojna, the MGNREGA schemes and not wanting to move from rural places referring comfort”.
Engineering Graduates Are Unwilling to Relocate.
He not only addressed the issues in workers’ mobilization but also shared the same issue in Engineering roles where graduates are relucted to move. “When I joined L&T in 1983, my boss said, if you are from Chennai, you go to Delhi and work. Today if I take a guy from Chennai and tell them to go to Delhi and work, will say bye, “SN Subrahmanyan.
Further said, “If you tell IT Employees to come to office and work, they will say bye, and that is a different world altogether. Therefore it is a funny world in which we are trying to live and many of us wearing slightly more white hair are trying to understand it. We have to see how to live with this world and have policies that are flexible to understand all this and take it forward, ” He said.
Sharing his views on development Subrahmanyan said, “Human Migration, Tech transition, Energy transition, and sustainability are key developments shaping the world. Further added, “For a nation to grow, building infrastructures like roads and power plants are key, but nation like India where labor shortage had made it complicated.
Salary High In the Middle East.
According to The Hindu, Besides, the Middle East is booming, he said. “Our backlog there is upwards of 22 billion, and in another three months, it can be 30 billion — and that is a lot of work. This is in many parts of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Though the life of the laborers, in terms of freedom of movement and maybe going to a theatre, is difficult, they tend to save more. The salary levels are three to four times what we pay in India,” he added.
The report further added, Stressing the need for skill training, Mr. Subrahmanyan said there was a need for flexible human policies. “We are putting some of the CSR budget into villages and towns. We are going there, celebrating Diwali, building schools, distributing equipment to ladies for sewing, coaching them and teaching them, so that an environment is created, by which they tell their menfolk that this company is good to go and work at… wherever you want to go, you go,” he said.
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