Mobilisation of labour for development in cities a problem in India: L&T CMD

L&T chairman discusses challenges of mobilizing labour for infrastructure development in India due to various factors and global opportunities.

Mobilisation of labour from villages and towns for infrastructure development in India’s cities is a problem, as labourers do not want to come and work in cities for various reasons, such as the direct benefit transfer and Jan Dhan schemes, said Larsen and Toubro (L&T) chairman and managing director S.N. Subrahmanyan on Tuesday (February 11, 2025).

Speaking at the CII Mystic South Global Linkages Summit in Chennai, Mr. Subrahmanyan said India had a peculiar problem: the attrition of labourers happens roughly about three to four times a year. “This means, for employing 4,00,000 labourers, we employed 1.6 million labourers. We have a database of 4 million people with us, their names, their Jan Dhan bank account, their Aadhaar number, the village they come from, their skillsets. There is a site in the western part of the country, where I am supposed to mobilise 50,000 labourers. I need people, but they are not willing to come.”

He went on to say: “[There are] various reasons, which are well known to you — the Jan Dhan bank account, the direct benefit transfers... maybe the economy is doing well, so you get jobs at the place where you are... the MNREGA scheme. So, people do not want to come all the way, say from Muzaffarabad, to Bombay to work. Because why do you want to struggle?”

Besides, the Middle East is booming, he said. “Our backlog there is upwards of 22 billion, and in another three months, it can be 30 billion — and that is a lot of work. This is in many parts of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. Though the life of the labourers, in terms of freedom of movement and maybe going to a theatre, is difficult, they tend to save more. The salary levels are three to four times of what we pay in India,” he added.

Pointing to the need for infrastructure development in developing countries such as India, Mr. Subrahmanyan said: “The nation has to grow, and infrastructure has to be built — roads and power plants. That is getting difficult to do because labourers are not available.”

Stressing the need for skill training, Mr. Subrahmanyan said there was a need for flexible human policies. “We are putting some of the CSR budget into villages and towns. We are going there, celebrating Diwali, building schools, distributing equipment to ladies for sewing, coaching them and teaching them, so that an environment is created, by which they tell their menfolk that this company is good to go and work at... wherever you want to go, you go,” he said.