The minister emphasised on cluster developments and boosting of industrial parks for retaining the workers.The West Bengal government is preparing a data bank of all migrant workers of various skill sets, who have returned from different states during the pandemic, Firhad Hakim, West Bengal’s urban development and municipal affairs minister, said.
“The real estate sector can take advantage of the databank to resolve the crisis of shortage of labour caused due to shifting of workers to their native places. But with a major section of migrant labours now returning to the state, the industry can engage them to build infrastructure. This human resource can be converted into assets,” Hakim, who is also the mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, said.
The minister emphasised on cluster developments and boosting of industrial parks for retaining the workers. He said many workers move to different parts to work in gem and jewellery, food processing sectors but if they can be engaged in the industrial parks here, it would add up to the manpower base of the state and in turn would draw huge investments.
“We are all looking up to the real estate sector, which contributes 8% to GDP with a workforce of 52 billion, for the revival of the economy. There is an estimated loss of 1 lakh crore by the real estate sector in 2020 due to the pandemic. The state government is working closely with a private firm to seek reports on how to rationalise the circle rates,” Hakim said.
According to Amber Maheshwari, CEO, Indiabulls, creation of demand for the real estate sector is the foremost concern as the demand for buying apartments has fallen drastically from 5 lakh apartments per annum in 2010 to 2.5 lakh apartments per annum in 2019 pan India. With a surge in e-commerce activities during the period, there would be a steep rise in warehousing for which real estate sector can gear up for. There is a dire need of more centres for economic activities in the country, and at the same time, evolution of new industries like IT sector is much needed to boost up demand of real estate.
Sushil Mohta, on behalf of CII, said it would take the lead to disburse the databank among it’s industry members who could gauge and engage the workers based on the different skill sets.
The real estate sector contributes up to Rs 85,000 crore business in West Bengal. The state government has supported the sector with favourable policies, single window system to ease out business in the state, Mohta added.
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