As Covid-19 cases rise, construction workers stay off Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Construction workers who lost jobs in the Gulf, other states and returned to Telangana are reluctant to come to Hyderabad despite being offered employment by builders and developers. Worried over the rising Covid-19 cases in the state capital, they are preferring to stay put in their villages. In fact, many had registered with the National Academy of Construction (NCA) seeking work but as Greater Hyderabad has become a hotspot for Covid-19, they changed their plans.
As many as 17,000 workers have returned of whom around 2,000 have come back from the Gulf while the rest have returned from different parts of the country.Among them are bar-benders, steel fixers, masons, electricians, welders, plumbers and other categories of the workforce. Now, most of them are either employed as agriculture labourers or doing petty jobs near their villages.
Guguloth Sharman, who returned to his village Badabeemgal in Nizamabad district said: “I used to get around ?25,000 a month from a company in Kuwait. After the Covid-19 lockdown, they stopped paying us. On return, we were delighted to know that NAC will get us jobs in the construction industry. But with Covid-19 cases going up in Greater Hyderabad, we felt it is not safe to work there,” he said. Sharman, who has a wife and two kids, is now working as an agricultural labourer.
Same is the case with carpenter Degavath Mahipal and mason K Venkatesh, who returned from Kuwait and Dubai respectively. Mahipal is now in Gannavaram in Nizamabad and Venkatesh is staying in Jannaram village in Mancherial. “Some developers contacted us but we said we would wait till the Covid-19 is brought under control in Greater Hyderabad,” said Mahipal.
National Academy of Construction director general K Bikshapathi said they have given the list of Gulf returnees and other Telangana native workforce to builders and developers associations. “Most of them are reluctant to come to Hyderabad now. They are preferring to work at their district,” he said.
Tredai president R Chalapathi Ra said though work in the construction industry has not stopped, it has been affected by a shortage of workforce. “We cannot force them to come to work. It may take a little more time for them to get convinced to come here,” he said. Credai former national president C Shekar Reddy said there is a huge shortage of workforce in the construction industry. “The builders and developers have been part of the joint initiative to allow the workforce to enrol their names on the NAC website. We are in touch with every worker. Soon, things will settle down,” he said