PUNE, India, 27 February 2008 — The exodus of 500 north Indian skilled workers has put in jeopardy the Commonwealth Youth Games at the Balewadi sports complex here beginning mid-October 2008.
The workers have fled the city in the wake of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s (MNS) hate campaign, raising a question mark over the contractors’ capability to meet the May 31 deadline for the upgrade of the complex.
BG Shirke Construction Technology Company Limited of Pune, which has been awarded the contract by the Maharashtra government for the work, has written a letter to the director of sports stating that it would be tough to meet the deadline in the absence of skilled labor.
M.T. Lalwani, the additional chief executive officer of the company, said that the laborers left despite of all attempts to stop them. “Police visited the site and spoke to them. Apart from this, we asked private security guards to accompany them at all times. Yet the last two weeks have seen about 500 out of 1,900 skilled laborers leave. All were expert fitters, carpenters, plumbers and fabricators, the type we don’t get in Maharashtra,” Lalwani said.
The company raised the issue yesterday with Commonwealth Youth Games committee member Nitin Kareer, who said: “We have reviewed the CYG preparations. As of now there is no problem. We have laborers working across multiple sites. So our contractor has managed to reassigned laborers from other sites for completing the construction for CYG before the deadline,” he said.
But Lalwani is adamant there is a problem. “We sent our teams last week to Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal states for hiring new skilled laborers as replacement. Now we’ll need about 600 laborers for getting the work done in time for the games to begin,” he said. To a question, whether his company would raise the cost of construction, Lalwani said: “We are not worried about money. Construction of eight buildings is on the verge of completion. But there are 11 more buildings under construction, to complete which we urgently need skilled manpower. Otherwise it is difficult to meet the deadline.”
Laxmikant Deshmukh, the state director of sports, underplayed the issue. “Most of the work is already done. We would get new laborers soon,” he said.
At the Balewadi complex, laborers from north India are scared. “The number of private security guards at the site has been increased. Police have also asked us to stay back. But if anything goes wrong, I would leave the city,” said a laborer from Bihar.
