Hyderabad: Developers worried of worker exodus, dangle bonus offers
Hyderabad
Less than 24 hours after the city's realty sector started to pick up pace, with migrant labourers slowly returning to work, a call from the police, on Tuesday morning, put brakes on the activity once again.
Speaking to TOI, developers said that the cops asked them to draw up a list of labourers, employed at their sites, willing to go home. They will, subsequently, be accommodated on trains being arranged by the state. "We have started the process. By the end of the week we'll know how many people are set to leave," said R Suresh Kumar, Senior Vice-President (business operations), Prestige Group (Hyderabad), fearing that a sizeable group of workers – almost up to 50% - will sign up for the journey back home, especially with 40 trains scheduled every day.
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On May 5, the two under-construction Prestige sites had only 800 and 150 workers respectively.
The fear is much the same among all developers, said Ramakrishna Rao, President of Credai-Hyderabad. "We are trying to motivate the workers to hold on till the festival season; but it is up to them," he said.
Fearing a mass exodus, many developers are doling out incentives to labourers willing to stay back. On offer are bonuses to promises of a Diwali bonanza. "We have decided to offer 20% extra to workers who stay back," said Tapas Patel, CEO of Om Sree Builders and Developers.
Sudipta Sengupta, TNN, Hyderabad
