The Chinese Are Here Already!
Two years ago I was away visiting Tonga, an exceptionally beautiful island in the Far East, which sees the first sun of the day because it is the closest country to International Date Line.
It was actually at International Date Line hotel that I stayed. When I came out after breakfast, I found a group of about fifty Chinese men squatting there. They were waiting for their supervisor to arrive. They were going to work on construction site, I was told. Who would have imagined that he would find migrant labour in a country whose name is not known to millions? But yes, they were there.
Something similar must be happening in Muscat or Dubai, I thought, when Indians go there for jobs. With millions not able to find a job in India, I never imagined that Chinese workers will arrive in India to do skilled as well as unskilled jobs! A report warned us a year ago that the Chinese are coming but nobody paid serious attention to it.
Now we cannot ignore it. The Outlook India article reports that over 25,000 Chinese workers are already working in India and that too in states such as Chhattisgarh where the unemployment is very high. Who are employing them? And where? And at what rate?
Rajiv Gandhi Thermal Power plant in Hissar, Haryana, many projects in West Bengal, Balco Plant, RIL’s Petroleum Projects, Adani’s Mundra Power Plant, Delhi Metro, Delhi International Airport are the employers. So we have both, private as well as Public sector units welcoming the Chinese workers.
They stay in AC housing, and get paid Rs. 1700 pd while our countrymen get Rs. 87 pd post deductions!
Foreign Capital is welcome, but foreign workers? Do we really require them? Can’t we develop our country men to do these jobs? Is anyone in Government aware what the ground reality is in this matter where foreign workers are brought on ‘Business visa’ and shown as skilled workers? In other countries, it is difficult to get a visa or work permit easily, one has to follow a long procedure.
The article on Outlook website has brought out some very disturbing facts of lack of Government Control.
Vivek
hmmm… firstly, thanks for making us aware of such important developments !
More than 90% of our labour force is in the unorganised sector, where their employability is an issue due to lack of formal training as well as education. With this chinese onslaught, the external environment poses just as much of a challenge as the indigenous conditions…
Economics states that there are 3 main factors of production-Land, Labour and Capital. Land is already a bone of contention, Labour seems to be up next.. We better be watchful, lest the Orient Express runs us over !
The danger is more grave than what it appears to be. Many of the projects where chinese laborers are working are of strategic importance. It can have serious ramifications.Some of the projects are not from private sector but from the public sector, I don't think any thing can beat that.
I guess the Governement needs to be asked to review this immediately. I guess a good subject for PIL.
The danger indeed is omnipresent ! All times !
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It is saddening indeed that these projects dont rely on their own resources to execute projects and that too in the light of the fact the kind of industry they are in like metro,petroleum..where india already has the self reliance…if the kind of work is sheer manual then its very strange to hire the competition when UP,Bihar..labor force is dying for work in home
Vaibhav
This certainly comes as a " shocking " revelation . India has both abundence of skilled & unskilled labor .. and surely does not need any " imports "
Had read that Hon Home Minister S/P.C has tightened on business visas ..
Hope to see reduction in nos soon
I guess being away from home my view varies a bit.
The question is not how to stop Chinese or control the number of Chinese workers coming into India? But why are the coming? What value/skill or advantage do they bring which cannot be provided by Indians in Chhattisgarh?
RIL, Adani are professional companies which managers looking for efficiencies all the time; why would they bring in Chinese at such high cost; if it did not make sense.
It is an excellent opportunity to introspect and plug the skill/knowledge/expertise gaps.
To end just two observations:
* If Chinese should not come to India; then should Indians not go to China? In addition, if we extend the argument; should no one go anywhere?
* We welcome foreign capital; if go asking for it; then why not foreign workforce?
Patwardhan Saab: Happy Diwali and Happy New Year.
Regards,
D J Rao
Dear Sir,
Your post also indirectly raises a important consequntial issue.
Why are the Central and Regional Trade Union organisations silent on this issue.
Have they not noticed this or is it not percevied as a problem..
Is it Indifference on the part of Unions or ??
Wonder how this makes cost benefit sense to these organisations, and since when did these large scale undertaking care about quality…if that is indeed the reason why they hire these 'skilled workers'.
China has historically been able to smuggle in myriad issues/persons/objects, since Nehruvian times and the days of the Chinese agression…(!)the trend continues…the China-Tibet railroad is doesnot bode well for this trend…
An interesting point I would like to bring to light here. A few weeks back, I met a lady who is running an organisation that tries to provide skills to the youth (18 to 26 years) from the slums, to make them employable. The idea is to reduce crime, make them more suitable for employment at better jobs than just labour intensive ones and so on. They would of course be trained with basic computer skills for clerical and secretarial jobs – routine tasks that most organizations need people for.
Interestingly enough they found that though the young men enrolled, many of them left it half way because of the effort it took and many others, completed the course and joined some jobs, only to leave those half way because they were “not glamorous” or “quick cash” or “too low-down”.
This is interesting simply because it throws up a very simple fact – in India right from the rigid caste system days, we have never been able to develop the concept of “dignity of labour”. When an entire society doesn’t have it, how can we expect individuals to find satisfaction in jobs that they will only see as “mundane” and “a loss of their dignity”?
Possibly, while there is a larger question about how the government can develop our youth to perform certain jobs, there is also the looming question of whether the youth would be motivated themselves to work on these jobs. When a social and occupational system is geared towards paying Rs. 87 per day for that job to get done, what motivation and what value is a man to set by that job? How seriously is he expected to take it? And how well will he actually try to do it?