The Hindu Business Line : New opening for job seekers

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Coimbatore Jan. 25 The textile industry in Tamil Nadu has sought to break the tedium in manpower hunt by turning to the weekly `grievance' redressal meeting held here every Monday under the aegis of the District Collector.

In the past three months, executives from the Human Resource Department of Southern India Mills Association (SIMA), the key textile mill management body in the region, have been sitting with the district administration officials at the meeting perusing the profiles of job-seekers.

They enrol their names with the public redress cell to verify whether these unemployed can be absorbed in the textile mills affiliated to the association.

SIMA's presence at the weekly redressal is at the behest of the District Collector.

Dr Neeraj Mittal, Coimbatore District Collector who set in motion the new system, feels the initiative is somewhat a `success' in providing one more opening for the jobless.

"The labour shortfall for the textile spinning industry in the State is roughly estimated at around 50,000 and this is besides the huge manpower shortfall being felt by other sub-sectors like powerloom/handloom in Karur and the garment centre of Tirupur,'' said Mr S.V. Arumugam, Chairman of SIMA.

According to the SIMA chief, the region's units which normally report their mill productivity levels at 95 per cent and above have begun to see their productivity falling below 80 per cent in the last two years due to non-availability of labour, especially at the shopfloor level.

The most acute shortage is felt for machine operators, shift supervisors and semi-skilled workers like fitters/turners.

Mills are, according to Mr Arumugam, accept the manpower shortfall. To cope with the situation, textile mills have begun to adopt the `lean management' practices by enlarging the competency level among the available workforce, even if it means paying higher wages.

SIMA officials, after verifying the job seekers list obtained from the district administration, circulate it to its member mills in need of skilled/semi-skilled labour. Based on this, the selection of candidates is communicated to the public redressal cell officials by SIMA.

Like SIMA, the Southern India Engineering Manufacturers' Association (SIEMA), the trade body representing the region's powerful foundry and pump manufacturing units, also experiences acute shortfall of skilled labour. Hence, it is also adopting the same system. The public redress cell has now evolved a durable system of circulating the job seekers' petitions to all major industrial associations.

The cell, which receives about 50 or so petitions every week, has so far forwarded about 100 or so unemployed applicants to SIMA, SIEMA and a private software company, RND Softech Pvt Ltd, according to Mr R. Gnanasekharan, Special Deputy Collector (Public Redressal Cell, Coimbatore).

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