By the end of month, a skeleton staff of 100 employees may be left to run the Amazon Warehouse
Nagpur: Recession had caused many companies to downsize their staff. Heavy loss to income too caused many employees to be given the Pink slips (notification by the personnel department to workers of his or her termination of employment). Amazon.in is an e-commerce and cloud computing company had started their Warehouse in MADC area in Butibori 4-5 months ago. This site which was originally leased by Transport Corporation of India (TCI) from MADC was then sub-leased to Amazon to host their Warehouse in the city.
An area of 1.5 lakh square foot land was taken-up to erect the warehouse.
The Amazon.in Company had started with a staff of 50, which increased to 150 and later to 350 highly skilled staff were appointed to man the Amazon Warehouse in the city. These staff received salaries of Rs 8000/- to 15,000/- per month. These staff had to work for 8-10 hours per day and five days a week. No employee was directly appointed at the warehouse.
The Amazon Company expected that they would be receiving orders in bulk from Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. However, when they did not receive the kind of orders that they expected, they have started quoting very lame excuses, finding faults with the employees and are laying-off Warehouse staff by the dozens.
Till date as many as 150 staff have been laid off and by the end of this month, another 50-60 employees may lose their jobs.
Sources in the company said that all the labour contractors of the company have been issued stern notices to downsize their staff with immediate effect. According to one of the labour contractor, the company will be running the warehouse with a skeleton staff of 90 to 100 employees.
It could be mentioned here that though the Chief Minister, Guardian Minister of the District, State Finance Minister, Union Cabinet Minister for Surface Transport all claim to ensure that the unemployed youth of our district will be given employment and no injustice of layoff will be entertained etc, yet how is it that within 4-5 months e-commerce companies like Amazon have downsized their saff and done injustice to the youth of Nagpur?
Another glaring blunder that has come to fore is that many Godowns, Schools, Showrooms etc have come up on the land allocated for Industries. This makes it amply clear and evident that the State and the Central Government has failed in promoting and making the atmosphere conducive for industries in the MADC area.
I’ll break the legs!
During an inauguration programme, Union Cabinet Minister had said that when DLF company had approached him for selling off their land so that they can move their operations in some other state, he had categorically told them that he will break their legs if they assume that they can close their business in Nagpur.
Appointment only with my letter of recommendation
The Cabinet Minister is also alleged to have said that he has encouraged another company called Viron to set up operations in Nagpur and has offered all support and help to the company. However, he has kept a condition that 3000 employees which the company needs will be appointed on his letter of recommendation only.
Can this sort of behavior encourage or prove to be conducive for investors in MIHAN, MADC, MIDC-Hingna and Buti-Bori?
The Cabinet Minister has claimed that his dream is to ensure at least 50,000 youth of Nagpur get gainful employment in various companies during his regime. Will this dream remain a dream alone?
– Rajeev Ranjan Kushwaha( rajeev.nagpurtoday@gmail.com )
