April 13, 2020
Placing bottles of sanitizers stationed at different counters and levels, mask and gloves given to everyone. With a yellow line indicating the limit till the workers can go while trucks are being loaded. To ensure social distancing is maintained, a 50-seater bus can only carry around 15 to 20 labourers. Shete has even provided temporary rooms and relocated some of the workers with the shelter within the factory premises to avoid commuting from home to plant.
The morning of March 27 found Vijay Shete a worried man. Shete is a manager of Amul’s dairy plant in Taloja, 40 km east of Mumbai. He surely had a reason to be concerned as the 50-odd contract workers who were supposed to turn up for the 9 am shift had not reported to work.
It had been three days since PM Modi declared a 21 day lockdown across the country to fight the spread of the coronavirus. Maximum commercial activities had come to a halt bringing country to a standstill position, but production of essential items like milk and medicines were allowed.
Several systems of the plant are fully automated. Hence, Shete could not allow the plant to be closed even for a single day. The said facility is Amul’s largest unit in Maharashtra and processes around half a million litres of milk, curd, buttermilk and other dairy products every day. Shete together with the HR manager, Ritu Tripathi, contacted the labour contractor, only to be informed that the workers were hesitant to step into the facility, as it has been already constrained by a state government order that such plants should operate with not more than 50% of its total headcount during the lockdown period.
“The workers didn’t want anyone else to be allowed inside once they were in the factory. But trucks had to come in to take our products,” informed Shete.
Even as efforts for convincing the workforce to join the work was on, the zesty Shete, Tripathi and other managerial and admin staff of the plant rolled up their sleeves and started placing milk pouches in crates and loading them on to the delivery trucks.
“We even called in our staff who were here through the previous night,” said the 26-year-old Ritu Tripathi.
By 3:30 evening, the labourers were on the production floor, after being assured of safety measures to enforce stricter hygiene practices. Shete and his good team made sure that there was no dip in production that day. This incident gives us all an example of both the dilemmas faced by manufacturers in these troubled times and how some dedicated people found a way to keep the stone rolling.
Shete has installed temporary washbasins and sinks within the complex and have stationed bottles of sanitizers at different counters and levels, and everyone has been provided with a mask and gloves. With a yellow line indicating the limit till the workers can go while trucks are being loaded. To ensure social distancing is maintained, a 50-seater bus can only carry around 15 to 20 labourers. Shete has even provided temporary rooms and relocated some of the workers with the shelter within the factory premises to avoid commuting from home to plant.
As an initial reaction of some of the migrant workers to PM Modi’s announcement of lockdown, many of the workers returned to their native land even though there was no threat to their jobs. Shete informed that even those who are not working during the lockdown, due to the rule mandating the use of only half the workforce, are being paid.
Krishna Roy, a supervisor at the AMUL facility, was keen to go back to his family in a village in Sonitpur district, Assam. But his wife and brothers advised him against it and requested him to stay back. From the masked face, Roy said that there is now enough awareness among his colleagues about the danger that the virus carries and to take necessary precaution and protection can keep them safe.
“People are scared. They will continue being careful even after this ends.”
First couple of days of the lockdown, loaded trucks from AMUL heading to the cities and retreat were stopped by the police authorities.
“So we decided to issue IDs to drivers,” says Shete. A note was also stuck on windshields, saying the vehicles were carrying essential items.
R.S. Sodhi, managing director of AMUL says such glitches are not uncommon at a time like this.
“You should know which authorities you need to approach to sort out these issues. And you need to do it quickly.”
For a food company to be operational now also depends on whether its suppliers are allowed to function, said Mayank Shah, category head at Parle Products. Though the central government guidelines related to the shutdown permits manufacturing of packaging material for foods, medical drugs and equipments, it might still be difficult for the trucks carrying cartons to get a green signal from the cops patrolling the roads and markets than for a containers, trucks or any other vehicles transporting milk to the shops and outlets.
While some producers of dairy and other foods may have enough stocks of packaging and other necessities to last them through the lockdown, it will be a hard slog for them if the lockdown period is extended.