Industry Odisha Bureau, May 6: When India’s growth story in shape of rapid economic transformation is being tom-tommed, unrests of factory workers, that too in and around the national capital New Delhi’s peripheral region, alleging low wages and poor working conditions blatantly belie India’s growth graph glory seems to have been exposed as a false vanity being mesmerized with a mere nine days’ wonderful eyewash.
A glaring case in point is the recent vehement protests by workers in Noida, a high-growth metropolis that boasts of skyscrapers, multi-lane roads/highways, and a multinational industrial as well as information technology (IT) hub.
Under such a grim scenario, experts point fingers at the manufacturing sector being allegedly skipped by India’s economic transformation spree. It is because the manufacturing sector, usually situated in the urban belt, is claimed to be absorbing the large low-skilled workforce from the virtually deserted villages under unavoidable circumstances, compelled to shy away from their ancestral occupation of agriculture despite India being primarily an agrarian economy.
Experts opine that this paradigm shift from the prime occupation of agriculture to services has triggered the nagging job crisis in India, and if at all employed, lpw wages and poor working conditions are the foregone conclusion in return. The bargaining power of the undone workforce has allegedly diminished or vanished. The Noida incident was akin to a dormant volcano that erupted all of a sudden when the limit of dormancy or docility crossed the limit of patience, endurance and tolerance.
Data reportedly shows: “Only about a fourth of workers are engaged in regular wage or salaried employment. Their wages remain extremely low, with average monthly earnings less than ₹20,000 per month in as many as eight states in India. Uttar Pradesh (UP) is one of them”.
Moreover, surveys and analyses undertaken by experts reveal that the low wages that remain stagnant for years should be religiously revised and increased, at least on humanitarian grounds in tandem with the rising inflation and growing gross domestic product (GDP).
Wise to quote in this context the reported version of Azim Premji University’s senior economist Prof Amit Basole: “India has a large surplus of labour, which takes away their bargaining power to translate productivity gains into wage gains. A large part of India’s workforce operates without a written job contract (58%), without social security eligibility (52%), and without paid leave (47%)”.
Azim Premji University’s analysis of official jobs data has reportedly stated: “Manufacturing remains a small share in the labour market. Over the last four decades, the share of young male workers in the manufacturing sector remained stagnant at 14-16%, even as the share of farm jobs declined dramatically from 57% to 27%. Services and construction absorbed most of these labourers”.
Moreover, data analysis of the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) reports: “Real output per worker grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.49% between fiscal 2011-12 and fiscal 2023-24—far less than 6-7% GDP growth. Real wage growth was a meagre 0.87% during the same period”.
Following the geopolitical situation and unabated tensions in the Middle East, and as India is amid a crucial juncture where rising inflation looms large over the country’s growing economy, the yet again raising of the fangs and tentacles of the simmering labour unrest cannot be ruled out by the apprehensive economists and experts in money matters as well as socio-economic developments.
