Few jobs, long queues, villagers fret

Chandigarh : ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ best sums up the plight of border area residents. Once famous as the foundry hub of the state, Batala today is just another descript town plagued with the flight of industry, poor infrastructure and lack of job opportunities.
Business boomed as migrants set up industrial units in the city for almost half a century. Jobs were aplenty and sky was the limit for the intrepid entrepreneur.
It all came to a screeching halt in 1992 when the Freight Equalisation Policy (FEP) was abolished. Businesses floundered and steadily the job market shrank.
Officials claim that in the past 25 years, Batala, Gurdaspur, Dinanagar and Pathankot registered a negative growth rate.
The scrapping of the FEP, adopted in 1948 by the Centre, meant that products manufactured in Batala were expensive than those produced elsewhere.
Industrialists shifted base to Jammu and Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh because of tax incentives. Some even shifted to South India. Today, 80 per cent of the city’s once-famed foundry units are closed.
“The cost of raw materials procured by Batala foundries now exceeds the price of the finished goods,” says machine tool businessman Iqbal Saimi.
Jawahar Marwaha, a pig iron trader, rues lack of jobs in the Gurdaspur-Dinanagar-Pathankot belt. “If Batala was famous for industrial units, the Gurdaspur-Dinanagar stretch was famous for its rice mills. Now, the two areas are struggling for survival. The youth are interested in settling abroad because of better employment avenues,” he says.
Former Gurdaspur MP Partap Singh Bajwa made efforts to bring a rail coach factory to Kalanaur, but failed. Instead, then Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda got one for Sonepat. Former Union Minister and Rajya Sabha member Ashwani Kumar failed to put Batala back on the industrial map.
Four-time BJP MP late Vinod Khanna made feeble attempts to improve the job market. And they don’t expect much from the sitting MP, Sunil Jakhar.