Coronavirus impact: Slowdown-hit automobile hub stares at dead end

Pawan Kumar, 34, misses the routine that comes with factory life. Every morning by 8 am, dressed in company-supplied uniform, Kumar would be at the stockyard inside the Maruti Suzuki plant in Manesar. He goes on with his job — manually moving around material in the plant’s stockyard. At 1 pm, he takes a 30-minute lunch break at the canteen. His shift ends at 5 pm. Unless there is overtime, Kumar is back by 5.30 pm at his chawl, shared with four others.

On March 22, the country’s largest car manufacturer suspended production at its mother plant to control the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. Since then, Kumar’s life has turned boring and uncertain.

Kumar doesn’t possess any technical or mechanical skill. A level-II contract worker, he isn’t fit to be employed in the assembly line, and depends on his manual labour for the paltry Rs 9,000 he makes every month.  

Maruti hasn’t cut salaries for the eight no-production days in March, but Kumar isn’t sure how long his employer will be generous if the closure continues.

“I spend seven-eight hours playing cards. I don’t like this life. If there is no work at the factory, there is no requirement for people like us,” says Kumar.

The Gurugram-Manesar-Bawal belt, stretching up to Neemrana in Rajasthan, houses one of the largest auto clusters in India. On any working day, it bustles with activity: Factories churning out the best-selling models, serpentine queues of trucks carrying those to showrooms, and the dhabas nearby teeming with workers. 

 

Ever since the lockdown began on March 25, life has come to a standstill in India’s Detroit and is now threatening the livelihood of thousands of those who migrated from across the country.

“I used to sell a minimum of 450 cups of tea on a normal working day. I haven’t sold anything since the hartal,” says Rupen Mahato, who owns a tea stall opposite two-wheeler major Hero MotoCorp’s plant in Gurugram.

 

 

The future of a blue collar worker also depends on the balance sheet of his employer. In this belt, there’s an extensive web of interaction between lead manufacturers and their suppliers. At the top of the tier, there are global auto firms like Maruti, Hero, Honda as well as component suppliers like Denso, Bosch, Rico.

While a large part of manufacturing is automated in these companies, the scale of operation means that the plants have to hire manual labourers on contract for non-skilled activities like loading, carrying, and managing canteens.

Threatened by a reverse migration of workers, these companies are trying to keep people like Kumar back. Maruti has kept its canteen open and is distributing 7,000 food packets daily in Kasan village, which houses a bulk of temporary workmen like Kumar.

Kumar has been among the lucky few not to have faced a job cut. For most others, the indefinite closure notice means a future as unpredictable as the pandemic.

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“Employee salary payouts are being made, according to schedule. Communication is being done with all regular and outsourced employees through established channels. We are also connecting with family members of employees through videoconferencing to engage and motivate them during lockdown days,” says Rajesh Uppal, member-executive board for human resources at Maruti Suzuki. 

However, at the bottom of the auto-belt hierarchy, a large number of small- and medium-scale component manufacturers with no concept of ‘lean production’ are battling to survive.

The auto industry was already facing its worst slowdown in decades, putting many such small entities in the supply chain under existential threat. The virus outbreak and the lockdown would worsen the situation, the industry fears.

Rakesh, a loader, who works for a spring manufacturer which supplies to Japanese major Honda Motorcycle and Scooters, is a case in point. 

On March 25, the first day of the national lockdown, the 34-year-old worker decided to walk back to Bijnor with his wife and two children. But when he reached Anand Vihar bus terminal, there were 20,000 others like him trying to board the few buses lined up there. 

“We couldn’t manage and returned. But as soon as it reopens, I will go back. I will work as a labourer in the farmlands, but I don’t want my children to stay like herd in the chawl and get infected,” says Rakesh, who hasn’t got his overtime allowance for the past two months. With less than Rs 10,000 savings, Rakesh’s wife now cooks lunch, while they get dinner from the community kitchen.

Deepak Jain, president of Automotive Component Manufacturers Association, says that most companies have desisted from firing workers, and salary has been on time for March, but he cautions that the lockdown can take the breath out of the industry. “With complete stoppage of work, the crisis in the downstream component suppliers has become acute, threatening their survival,” says Jain, chairman and managing director at Lumax Industries, which manufactures lights for major carmakers.

To many like Rakesh, Jain’s warnings could sound like a death sentence. “I have seen many hartals in life, there is always a chance of solution. This one is too uncertain. No one knows when and how to end it.”

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