MAHBUBNAGAR: At a time when the Central government and the respective State governments have started providing lockdown relaxation to the industrial sector, the Micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) units in the erstwhile Mahbubnagar district are uncertain about how they will resume functioning without the migrant labourers.
The erstwhile district has around 3,526 MSME units in which as many as 20,000 migrant labourers, hailing from various States including Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, used to work. However, following the announcement of the nationwide lockdown during mid-March, all these MSME units were shut down after which the migrant labourers started facing severe financial crunches.
Owing to this situation, the migrants started heading back to their native areas in other States, which has reportedly left the MSMEs and various other sectors in the lurch. Now, when the MSMEs are planning to resume operations, the owners of the units are struggling to find workers. According to sources, construction, textile and poultry sectors will also face a similar situation and will find it really hard to resume services, owing to the unavailability of migrant workers. It is learnt that the situation is no different in any of the five districts under the erstwhile Mahbubnagar.