Diamond Workers Desert Surat for their Villages
July 14, 20
(IDEX Online) - Migrant diamond workers are deserting Surat, India's cutting and polishing capital as COVID-19 cases spike and factories remain closed.
They're returning in their thousands to villages elsewhere in Gujurat, with local media estimating that only 20 per cent of the diamond workforce remains in the city.
Surat's once-thriving diamond industry was locked down on 1 July after 850 cases were confirmed among workers, mostly in the Katargam area.
The city's death toll today stands at 292, according to Surat Municipal Council, with 7,112 conformed or positive cases and 12,038 people in quarantine.
Diamond and textile factories, which account for most employment in the city, are mostly small family-owned concerns lacking the financial resources to survive enforced inactivity or to support an idle workforce.
As many as 900,000 people work in the diamond industry, many of whom sent money home to their families - until the work dried up, leaving them no choice but to return.
Groups of impoverished artisans are hiring buses and trucks to take them and their belongings back home, with little prospect of them going back.
Surat's diamond units could re-open today, depending on rates of coronavirus infection.
File pic of Gujurat village