Garment factories in Delhi-NCR are waiting for their workers who went to their villages for Chhath Puja as a majority of them have not come back so far. Each year, workers would come back within a week after the festival or earlier, but the situation this time is different.
Chhath is an ancient Hindu festival historically native to the Indian subcontinent, more specifically, the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
Delhi-NCR employs lakhs of workers and many of them go to their home state to celebrate Chhath Puja that occurs from 17th to 20th November. Operators normally take leave for a minimum of 10 days to 2 weeks or more for the festival.
Industry insiders told Apparel Resources that workers are taking time to come back as they are well aware that overall there aren’t many orders and in such cases they don’t have any chance to get overtime, which is a big attraction for them.
So, garment factories, especially those which have reasonably good orders are also facing a shortage of workers and have contacted the workers to call them back.
“We have made call to workers and asked them to come back as soon as possible. We are expecting that they will be back by the end of this month so can join from 1st of December,” shared a top official of Richa Group, one of the leading export houses of Delhi-NCR who wanted to remain anonymous.
On the other hand factories which don’t have good orders, are not bothered due to less availability of workers since they have the required workforce.
