Why Odisha Workers Get a Fatter Cheque

Workers from the state have impressed many industries. There's a skilling machine at work

- N. Madhavan

Bhubaneswar/Chennai Ram Babu Singh, a human resources manager at Sri Kannapiran Mills, in Coimbatore, has a skill that helps him hire and retain migrant workers coming to Tamil Nadu—he can speak 10 languages.

Of the denim fabric maker's 2,200 workers, spread across six plants, more than 1,700 are from the eastern states of Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam.

The 52-year-old native of West Bengal has been in the human resources role for 13 years. He claims he can now understand the mindset of migrants really well. Those from Odisha are the most efficient, he vouches. "Most migrants work hard, but what sets workers from Odisha apart is their skills. They are well trained," he said.

The company, he explained, has benchmarks to evaluate all workers. For instance, those working in the ring spinning section—where yarn is produced from fibre such as cotton, wool and viscose—are considered medium level workers if the output they achieve is 85% of the benchmark. Those who exceed 93% are considered highly skilled.

"Workers from Odisha consistently exceed the 93% level. By doing so, they end up earning a significant portion of the production incentive on offer," he added.

Many workers from the state also move up the ladder faster, quickly becoming trainers and supervisors. Their wage premium (the wage differential between skilled Odisha workers versus workers from other states) at Sri Kannapiran Mills is as high as 20 to 30%.

The story in nearby Tiruppur, India's knitwear capital, is similar. "Workers from Odisha earn higher than other workers as their productivity is high," said Raja M. Shanmugham, founder of Warsaw International, a large exporter of knitwear and former president of Tiruppur Exporters' Association.