An employee of a private manufacturing unit in Coimbatore tweeted on Tuesday that the company he was working in planned to open on Wednesday and that it employed about 100 people.
He also said that the company had reduced the salary for March to the employees. The employee tweeted the message tagging the Chief Minister and Coimbatore city police Twitter handles.
Following this, some of the officials had contacted the industry owner to find out if there were plans to reopen on Wednesday.
The Managing Director of the firm told The Hindu that the company was into agriculture products and was located in a rural area. Based on announcements by the Central Government, there were plans to re-open the unit after April 20 and hence a message was sent to the employees. However, since the State government announced that there would not be any relaxation to industries till May 3, the plan was dropped. Regarding wages, the MD of the company said since the lockdown is in place, the unit faced fund shortage and was unable to pay full wages. It had also said in its message that the workers would be compensated after the lockdown was lifted.
District Collector K. Rajamani said if industries are found operating without permission the units will be instructed to stop production. If the situation gets worse, the units will also be sealed.
