An acute shortage of workers has turned the roar of machines to a soft hum at a footwear factory near New Delhi, just one of thousands in India struggling to restart after an exodus of migrant workers during the virus lockdown.
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India is slowly emerging from strict containment measures imposed in late March as leaders look to revive the battered economy, but manufacturers don't have enough workers to man the machinery.
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The big cities - once an attractive destination for workers from poor, rural regions - have been hit by reverse migration as millions of labourers flee back to their far-flung home villages, some uncertain if they will ever return.
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"Sixty percent of our labourers have gone back. How can we run a production unit with just one-third of our workforce?" asked Sanjeev Kharbanda, a senior executive with Aqualite Industries, which owns the footwear factory in the northern state of Haryana.
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Kharbanda said the company's sports shoe unit had been sitting idle as there were no skilled workers to operate the high-tech machines.
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"We are running just one shift now. The cost of production has gone up and our profits are going down," he said, a conveyor belt carrying semi-finished flip-flops running slowly in the background.
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A non-operational conveyor belt as production slowed down at the Aqualite footwear factory in Bahadurgarh in the northern Indian state of Haryana.
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Labourers packing shoes on a production line at the Aqualite footwear factory in Bahadurgarh in the northern Indian state of Haryana.
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A non-operational conveyor belt as production slowed down at the Aqualite footwear factory. | In Gujarat state's Surat city - where 90 percent of the world's diamonds are cut and polished - many factories have been unable to open after more than two-thirds of workers fled, Surat diamond association president Babu Kathiriya told AFP.
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The economy is forecast to grow at its slowest pace in 11 years, and analysts are bracing for a severe contraction in the current quarter.
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