More than 5 Lakh employees await to get vaccinated: Industrialists fear crisis, reopening the industries

Coimbatore: 'Covid- 19' outbreak, both the first wave and the second wave, has very badly affected the manufacturing sector across Coimbatore district. 

While most of the employees are ready to get vaccinated, the shortage of vaccine supply has made many lakh employees wait. This has added a huge burden to the Industrialists. Most of them fear a crisis which can happen if all the manufacturing industries start to function in the upcoming weeks with full workforce. 

Entrepreneurs have requested the state government and the central government to ensure that industrial City Coimbatore gets sufficient vaccine supply which would help all the industry workers to get their jobs soon.

Coimbatore District Small Industries Association(CODISSIA) President, Ramesh Babu said, "We are really saddened to say that only 15% of the total workforce in the manufacturing sector across the district have been vaccinated. There are still more than 5 Lakh workers who are awaiting to get their doses and the shortage of vaccine supply has made them continue to wait for a long time. 

The state government has started giving relaxation step by step and we hope from the next week onwards all the manufacturing industries would restart functioning with the full workforce strictly following the rules and guidelines given by the government. The biggest fear all the Industrialists have is that restarting the industries with full work force while most of them have not got vaccinated would increase the risk of spreading the infection. 

This would ultimately end up in Crisis. We are continuously making our presentations to the state and Central Government. During June we were assured to be provided with sufficient vaccines, but only 5% workers are able to get vaccinated the whole month. Previously at the end of May, 10% of the workforce in the district were vaccinated and together till now only 15% of the workers have got their doses. Still more than 5,00,000 employees have to be vaccinated and with the quantity given from central government side, we don't know how and when we would finish vaccinating all our workers. We request the government to take to needy steps ensuring sufficient vaccine supply is given to the industry sector as earliest possible."

Tamilnadu Open End Spinning Mills Association (OSMA), President, Jayabal said, "Industrial City Coimbatore stands next to Chennai in contributing a major portion in Tamil Nadu’s overall industry growth. All the Industrialists play a vital role in contributing more taxes which is the main revenue to both the governments. Post pandemic outbreak, all the industrialists are reeling under crisis. In this situation, the second wave outbreak has made our situation even more worse. In the textile sector, migrant workers play an important role, Since they share a major portion in the total workforce. During the first wave, along with the Government support we made the arrangements for all the migrant workers to return back to their hometown. 

After normalcy returned, we took steps to bring back all the migrant workers who went back to their hometown. Each and every Industrialist spent many lakh rupees to bring back their workers. During December only all the mills started functioning and within a few months again the pandemic outbreak second wave occurred and as a result of which full lockdown was implemented. 

Due to the fear, many workers again went back to their hometown and at present since the government is providing relaxations some of them started returning back to Coimbatore. But in spite of the ongoing lock down implementation we have taken steps to ensure proper food accommodation and health service is provided to the workers who have stayed back at Coimbatore. Both industrialists and the workers are ready to get vaccinated. But shortage of vaccine supply has very badly affected the interest of the workers in getting their jabs. 

At present the vaccine supply which we get is only helping to vaccinate a few hundred people and that too for the past few weeks the supply given to the industry sector has also been stopped. We are really very upset and undergoing mental agony fearing how we are going to Resume back to normalcy. 

Opening all the industries with full workforce without vaccinating would end up in Crisis only. If the infection starts spreading, again the government will swing into action by keeping a seal on our industries and publishing the news along with pictures to print and visual media. Already the MSME industry sector is half dead. In this situation, the above said incidents will even worsen the situation."

He added, "Good times or bad times, Coimbatore Industrialists always ensure more contributions have been made. Even during the present ongoing pandemic outbreak Industrialists have contributed so much help. Industrialists of Coimbatore have contributed a very huge amount to chief Minister covid-19 relief fund too.

We also know how difficult it is to provide vaccines to a hugely populated country like India. But our request to the government is that they have to give equal importance to both the public and the industry sector. Because if the industry sector is heavily affected then it would have a very bad and big impact on the entire society and also to the government revenue. Considering the importance of the industrial City Coimbatore, we request the government to ensure sufficient vaccines are supplied as soon as possible which would help all the workers to get vaccinated before or within a few days after reopening of the industries."