Sudhir Bhargav,
Proprietor, Vishal Cement & Steel
We have been catering to the cement market in Nagpur (Maharashtra) from last 40 years dispatching around 8000 MT of cement per month. Orient and Birla Gold are two very popular brands in this region.
One of the big problems here is labour shortage. Nagpur has inflow of labour from Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Ever since the government started with its scheme to provide 35 kg rice and food grains per person every month, at the rate of Rs 2 per kg, the workers do not feel the need to work anymore. 35 kg is more than one can eat in a month. The rice that they buy at Rs 2 per kg is then sold back in the market at Rs 15-16 per kg. On top of that, the government also provides 18 day wage to all workers registered under its scheme (Mukhya Mantri Rahat) irrespective of whether they have any work to do or not. This is sufficient to keep them away from work creating huge labour shortage for us. Rather than implementing labour laws for the benefit of the workers, or starting with infra projects that will create employment, the UPA government believed in giving them such freebies paid for with our tax money.
In Maharashtra we are paying 32 different types of taxes, and now they have introduced LBT. We have a factory at MIDC for manufacturing concrete tiles and interlocking blocks. Every day we have some inspector coming and asking for all kind of papers and documents. We have to hire people just to tackle these nuisances. Managing factory inspectors is taking more time than running the business.