By IANS,
Chandigarh: The Punjab government will examine the possibility of legalizing the three-shift system in the industry, as prevalent in Tamil Nadu, to increase productivity and ensure more employment opportunities for the youth.
Punjab Chief Minster Parkash Singh Badal Saturday asked the state’s industry secretary to study the Tamil Nadu model and work out a similar plan for Punjab.
“Unemployment is a major problem in the state, leading to various social and economic problems and it must be tackled effectively by removing all bottlenecks. Our aim is to make Punjab a top ranking industrial state in the country,” Badal said at a joint meeting of senior officers of industries department and the representatives of the textile industry from all over Punjab at Ludhiana, 110 km from here, Saturday.
Badal said that there is a huge potential of skilled manpower in Punjab and the state government and the industrial community should jointly work to resolve the unemployment problem by training our boys and girls in different disciplines and ensure their absorption in the industries and other entrepreneurship ventures in the state.
Leading industrialist S.P. Oswal and other members of the industrial community brought out various issues in the meeting, especially relating to the textile industry, and pointed out that one of the major obstacles in the way of recruiting the female workers from villages are the social apprehension regarding their safety and security.
Once one of the most progressive states in the country, Punjab has lagged behind in industrial investment in the 1980s and 1990s, largely owing to terrorism in the state.