A file picture of BRO labourers at work on the Gangtok-Nathu-la road in Sikkim

Gangtok, May 2: At a time when the Centre is pumping in nearly Rs 1,200 crore to improve the road infrastructure along the India-China border in Sikkim, the implementing agency is facing labour shortage because of another central project, the NREGA.

So much is the shortage that Border Roads Organisation officials here are apprehending that the strategically important road projects may get delayed.

Project Swastik of the BRO, which looks after the highways of the state, has three widening projects at hand — 180km-long North Sikkim Highway (Rs 600 crore), 66km-long Gangtok-Nathu-la road (Rs 495 crore) and 96km-long NH31A (Rs 73.9 crore for the 41km-stretch in Sikkim, while the survey has not been completed on the Bengal side). The first two projects are scheduled to be completed by 2015.

Besides local people, the BRO relies heavily on migrant population from Jharkhand, Orissa and parts of north Bengal for its labour force working in the high-altitude projects.

However, according to the Project Swastik officials, the migrant labour component has dried up following the implementation of the central job scheme under the NREGA. Currently, the organisation is grappling with 20-25 per cent shortage of labourers in Sikkim. They are also not getting workers from Nepal in the expected number at this juncture.

The BRO engages around 3,000 workers a day on an average for its projects in Sikkim.

“The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has done well but the labour component has gone down because of the scheme. It has become a major problem across the country,” a BRO official said. “As a result, many labourers have stopped coming to Sikkim also. We don’t get our labour resources.”

The BRO official also said the hydel power projects under construction in North Sikkim have also wooed maximum labourers by offering better remuneration.

Sources said the BRO has sufficient machinery to overcome a percentage of labour shortage. “We have machines but labourers are also required for a host of manual work,” an official said expressing fears that the road widening projects may get delayed.

The state rural development department has, however, offered a different view on the national problem of labour crisis.

“The central scheme has brought an alternative opportunity of employment to the labourers who have now the capacity to bargain and negotiate. Labour force is available if you are only willing to give them a better package than the scheme offers. Employing labourers at low prices is not possible now,” said Sandeep Tambe, the additional secretary of the department. The scheme is like a safety net that provides a minimum of Rs 100 a day to a labourer.

Speaking in general on the labour shortage in the country, Tambe said as more semi-skilled and skilled labourers were required for mega construction projects, one should probably look at the aspect of using high-tech machinery to replace the labour force.

The official admitted that the labour market has totally changed because of the implementation of the central scheme. Earlier, opportunity was not available in villages, so men used to migrate to far away places, leaving their families behind.

“The NREGA has provided the opportunity and right to get employment in villages now, giving the rural people an option to stay at home and earn money rather than migrating to urban areas. So we need to go for more mechanised ways of construction, so that manual labour is required less in these mega projects,” said Tambe.