Chandigarh, Haryana: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar backed his government's decision to release an advertisement calling for recruiting 10,000 construction workers who will be sent to Israel and said, "Nobody is being forced to go," and it's up to their choice whether they want to go or not.
Notably, the Haryana government has released an advertisement recruiting 10,000 construction workers who will be sent to Israel, a country that has been locked in a war with Hamas for over two months and faces an acute shortage of labourers.
Haryana CM: We must provide manpower to countries where there is need
Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar says, "...We are ready to supply manpower where there is a need in different countries. Israel asked us for 1000 manpower...We released an advertisement that those who are skilled should apply...There are a lot of countries where there is a need for manpower...The youth should be sent systematically and take all legal procedures into consideration."
"Nobody is being forced to go and It's not that no one lives in Israel. Earlier people from different nations used to come now our people will go, we have provided a legal channel to them," said Khattar.
Earlier, Israel's construction sector has said that it asked the government to allow companies to hire up to 100,000 workers from India to replace 90,000 Palestinians who lost their work permits since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Voice of America (VOA) reported.
Israeli construction sector is currently facing a labour shortage
The Israeli construction sector is currently facing a labour shortage. This can be attributed to the cancellation of work permits for Palestinian workers after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. The vice president of the Israel Builders Association, Haim Feiglin, was quoted by VOA as saying: "Right now we are negotiating with India. We are waiting for [the] decision of the Israeli government to approve that. And, we hope to engage 50,000 to 100,000 workers from India to be able to run the whole sector and bring it back to normal."
"We are at war and the Palestinian workers, which are about 25 per cent of our human resources in the sector, are not coming, are not permitted to work in Israel," he said.
In response to the government's decision Former CM of Haryana Deepender Singh Hooda, while conducting a press conference on Tuesday, said, "This government does not have jobs and it's a non-performing government and the most corrupt one."
