The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) would soon come out with the Code of Conduct for the employment of migrant workers. The association said that it will be done as a proactive measure to make the system of direct recruitment from different states of the country a grand success as well as meet all the legal and social requirements.
Tamil Nadu that accounts around 45 per cent of the spinning capacity, 70 per cent of the knitted garment manufacturing capacity, 22 per cent of the weaving capacity and directly employing over 60 lakh people, started facing labour shortage during the last decade due to exponential growth in the manufacturing facility. The employment of migrant workers from various states has been increasing steadily.
In the major clusters like Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Dindigul, the migrant workers account 30 to 90 per cent depending upon the mills. With the increase in demand for migrant workers across the nation, the mills started facing high attrition problem. Therefore, SIMA has started direct recruitment from its formal placement cell for its members to begin with from Tripura, said the association in a report.
The textile mills face numerous problems in sourcing, mobilising, recruiting and retaining the migrant workers for a reasonable period. In order to overcome these issues, SIMA had written to the labour and employment departments of various States in upcountry including the North Eastern States. The Government of Tripura immediately responded and came forward to extend all the support for recruitment and organised an exclusive job fair with SIMA during April 25-26, 2018 at Agartala.
P Nataraj, Chairman, SIMA has highly appreciated the proactive approach of the government of Tripura and thanked the Chief Minister, Biplab Kumar Deb for his direct involvement in the job fair and recruitment process. The government had given enough publicity to mobilise the unemployed youth.
SIMA Chairman stated that around 4,000 unemployed youths, both male and female, attended the job fair from various districts of Tripura. Eight member mills of SIMA viz., M/s. Aruppukottai Jayavilas Limited, Shiva Texyarn Limited, Sri Kannapiran Mills Limited, Loyal Textile Mills Limited, Sangeeth Textiles Pvt Limited, KKP Spinning Mills Pvt Limited, Harshini Textiles Limited and Raga Tex India Private Limited participated in the fair and selected 1,635 candidates out of which 1371 were male and 264 were female candidates. These would include 20 physically challenged candidates also.
Nataraj also appreciated the efforts taken by the Chief Minister of Tripura and the senior officials for extending the necessary support and facilitating a dedicated train to bring the recruits to Tamil Nadu. He stated that the direct recruitment exercise jointly made by the Government of Tripura and SIMA would help the mills to source the right candidates with good background and enable the unemployed youths of Tripura job opportunities in Tamil Nadu.
The job fair exercise would be repeated in Tripura as the maiden attempt has become a grand success and enquiries have already come from a large number of member mills. SIMA would also conduct the same exercise in other States, said the Chairman.