Shortage in abundance

An industry body recently organised a workshop on industrial safety in the Chhattisgarh capital. But the state's principal secretary with the industry department, N Baijendra Kumar, suggested that it wasn't just the safety of workers in the factories that needed attention, the "security" of industry in the state was at stake. No, he was not talking of Naxal-related disruptions but the fact that the many small and medium industries here were suffering as a result of the Union government's policies that left them struggling for raw materials - that too in a mineral-rich state.