Azim Premji calls for government action to avert Manesar repeat

A week after labour protests broke out at Maruti's Manesar plant, Wipro's billionaire Chairman Azim Premji on Tuesday expressed concerns and called the incident a reflection of rising social unrest in the country and called for government action. "Manesar strikes are sensitive and representative of the social unrest in the country, which is building up among trade unions," he said at a press conference following Wipro's June quarter results in Bangalore.

"It was pretty unfortunate. It is important that individual associations take up the cause and the Government should act ruthlessly to ensure that such incidents don't happen anymore," Premji added. Factory workers at Maruti's Manesar plant in Gurgaon carried out violent agitations last week, that resulted in the death of a general manager at the factory.

Government has announced that it will set up a special investigative team to look into the violence. Premji later clarified that he referred to the Gurgaon area when he talked about unrest. About the slowing economic growth and policy paralysis in the country, Premji said that while new projects and policies are needed, government should at least put greater focus on execution of the existing projects and policies.

"Let us give the PM a fair chance now that he has taken the additional portfolio of finance ministry. Let us see how it rolls out," he said. Last week Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata too had come out in defence of prime minister Manmohan Singh. On Tuesday Wipro reported a 1.4% sequential fall in revenues in the June quarter and guided for 0.3% - 2.3% revenue growth in the September quarter.