While some industries continued to face requests from migrant workers to go home, the situation was returning to normalcy in some other units in Coimbatore and Tiruppur districts on Sunday.
J. James, president, the Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Tiny Enterprises, said that despite measures taken by the police and the district administration, the workers were returning to their native States.
A. Sivakumar, president of the Coimbatore and Tirupur district Tiny and Micro Entrepreneurs Association, said he employed 60 north Indian workers at his unit. “Some of them wanted to return home. I spoke to them and they agreed to stay back. They are aware that the messages are false,” he said.
P. Nallathambi, president, the Coimbatore SIDCO Industrial Estate Manufacturers Welfare Association, said the situation should turn normal soon.
The police and local officials are talking to workers in textile mills across the State, and it is helping. The situation has improved a lot in the last 24 hours. These measures should continue, said Prabhu Dhamodharan, convener, Indian Texpreneurs Federation. “We need to give advertisements in publications in one or two main States in the north, saying Tamil Nadu is a safe place to work. Besides stopping the workers here from returning home, we need them to come here again...,” he added.
In Chennai, companies that employ migrant workers talked to them on Sunday. In MSME clusters and estates in the city, employers visited hostels where the workers stayed and held elaborate discussions. They asked the workers to talk to their families through video call. “A section of people are still not convinced. We are hopeful that they will resume work from tomorrow,” said the secretary of one of the industrial estates.
In the real estate sector, additional security has been deployed at construction sites and hostels where the workers stay. Firms that The Hindu reached out to said work had not been stopped or impacted much. Suresh Krishn, president, CREDAI Tamil Nadu, said, “We are ensuring that we take videos during meetings with the workers. The videos are sent to their families and other construction sites.” The police sent teams with Hindi-speaking persons to each site to boost the workers’ confidence.
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Since 2009, many migrant workers have come to Tamil Nadu to work in the real estate sector. “And today, they play a major role in this sector. In big projects, 85% of the work is being done by them and in medium-scale projects, 70% of the work is done by them,” Mr. Krishn said.
A contractor who brings workers for the Metro Rail project said that so far, most of the migrant workers have come to work. “I will know the exact situation only on Monday.” Since most of the people are claiming that the workers have gone home for Holi, the exact situation can be ascertained only next week, said hotel industry representatives.
