FMCG cos stepping up production under eased norms but labour, supply chain issues impede

Major FMCG players are trying to maximise production with the easing of regulations on opening of factories outside municipal limits by the government from Monday in the extended phase of lockdown despite continued constraints of manpower availability and supply chain issues.

Companies like Patanjali, Ruchi Soya, Dabur and Parle Products that have been operating their plants in a scaled down manner during the first phase of lockdown with limited workforce suggested giving manufacturing permission to their several suppliers, which are mostly MSMEs and fall within the city radius, as it is affecting smooth functioning of the supply chain.

Factories of Patanjali and Ruchi Soya were operational even during the lockdown because we operate in food and essentials. However, there were issues regarding transportation and supply chain etc during lockdown, which I expect to ease out slowly, Yoga Guru Ramdev told PTI.

According to him, Patanjali witnessed almost two to three fold jump in the demand of its several products and expected that supply of such products would be increased in the market going forward.

Similarly, Dabur India Executive Director-Operations Shahrukh Khan said, "Almost all of Dabur's factories are operational today, producing a range of ayurvedic medicines, hygiene products like hand sanitisers, hand wash and daily essentials, with strict implementation of SOPs for social distancing at offices, workplace, factories, proper sanitization of buildings, factories."
He further said, "We are now trying to maximise production, given the supply chain constraints, and material and manpower availability. The recent guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs have definitely helped ease the situation as we go forward."
"There would not be much change on the production part but in the supply side and availability of workforce would improve further," said Shah, adding that "even in the market as my distributor, whose labour was not coming, this would change because of this."
He further said, "Now more people would go out to work and it would infuse certain confidence in those who were not willing to work. It would increase further availability of the workforce."
"Migration of workers and restrictions on the movement of people across cities or towns have created a dent on the availability of human resources," he said, adding "to overcome labour availability challenges, we are housing some of them inside the plants taking care of their lodging, food, hygiene, and entertainment. That has eased some of our challenges yet a lot of ground needs to be covered."