This story is from July 8, 2020

New rule for those entering Punjab irks bizmen

New rule for those entering Punjab irks bizmen
Ludhiana: Businessmen are upset over the new rules set by the state government for entry of the people into Punjab, under which the person will have to be home quarantined for 14 days.
According to businessmen, the move will prove to be a setback for them as it will badly affect the inflow of workers who have started coming back to Punjab after such a long gap.
They are also of the view that workers will also be at the receiving end as they will have to sit without work for at least 14 days after coming back and therefore the rules for workers should be relaxed.
Speaking on the issue, Upkar Singh Ahuja, president of Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings (CICU), “In the month of May and June the government sent workers through special trains to their home towns in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. But after a few days only the workers exhausted the money they had with them earned by working in Ludhiana factories and condition of most of them became very pathetic. Now, they are unable to even meet the day to day expenses there.”
Ahuja added, “When these workers started coming back and even businessmen went out of the way to help them by ensuring their safe travel back to Ludhiana by way of taxis and other means the government has made a new law that anyone entering Punjab from other states would be subject to mandatory home quarantine of 14 days.”
He further said, “With such strict guideline in place it will be another blow to the workers as they are coming here in the search of work and now they will have to sit idle for two weeks first and then report to work. Moreover, with this condition in place the load will be on the factory owners again to manage the living expenses for 14 days of the workers. These new rules are not justified and the government should exempt factory workers from this restriction and rather conduct free Covid-19 tests of workers upon their arrival in the state. Only those workers should be quarantined whose report comes positive, while those found negative should be allowed to report for duty after the report is received.”

According to Pankaj Sharma, general secretary of CICU, “With the new rules in place for entry into Punjab it would be very difficult for our industry to operate. We have already suffered huge losses during the lockdown and now when little bit of work started in factories this condition has been set. Right now, we only have 40% workforce available in Ludhiana factories as compared to the pre-lockdown time. As of now, factory owners are bringing back their workers on buses and taxis as the trains from the far-off states have still not started running. In the wake of such a situation if our workers will be subjected to 14 days quarantine the industry will suffer huge losses.”
Jatinder Singh Tinku, a garment manufacturer from Basti Jodhewal, said, “If the factory workers will be subjected to home quarantine upon their arrival, it will lead to huge problems for us as on one side our expenditure incurred on bringing back workers will go waste while on the other hand we will not be able to operate our factories without labour. Therefore, the government must relax the norms for the factory workers and rather than subjecting them to 14-day mandatory quarantine, free of cost testing should be done.”
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