In a first of its kind, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Saturday inaugurated a housing industrial facility at Sriperumbudur in Chennai to accommodate the women employees of key Apple supplier Foxconn.
The state-of-the-art industrial housing facility at the State Industries Development Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) Industrial Park in Vallam Vadagal, Sriperumbudur is an initiative designed to provide secure and comfortable housing for Foxconn’s women employees. Built at a cost of Rs 706.05 crore, the facility was developed by SIPCOT. Spread over 20 acres inside the industrial estate, the complex has 13 blocks, with 10 floors each. Each block consists of 240 dormitory-style rooms and a room can accommodate six beds.
Modelled along the lines of the housing facilities that Foxconn provides for its employees in China, the hostel boasts of various facilities including indoor and outdoor play area, solar water heater facility for all 13 blocks, 1MW rooftop solar power plant, five sanitary napkin incinerators, mosquito nets to all rooms, separate kitchen building, dining area for 4,000 people, RO water purifier plants for each block, rainwater harvesting, sewage treatment plant, solid waste management, CCTV cameras and much more.
The facility has been inaugurated almost three years after major protests by almost all women employees of the company against the “poor quality” accommodation facilities provided by them. The women employees staged a road blockade on the Chennai-Bengaluru highway. The Foxconn facility had to shut down its operations for almost a fortnight because of the protests.
Inaugurating the housing facility, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said the Taiwanese electronics major Foxconn is an integral part of Tamil Nadu’s economic growth story. He expressed hope that Foxconn will continue to invest in the state. “These investments contribute to my dream of making Tamil Nadu a $1 trillion economy by 2030,” Stalin said. Stalin also spoke in detail about the various measures taken by the state government to bring in investments. He also added SIPCOT will build more industrial estates.
Speaking during the inaugural event, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said that women are a bigger part of the company’s workforce in Tamil Nadu. In an attempt to control the damage caused by the recent media reports, he said, “Married women also contribute greatly to Foxconn’s growth in Tamil Nadu.” His comments on married women come at a time when the company is reportedly facing an inquiry by the union government for allegedly excluding married women during recruitment and discrimination among the women workforce.
He also said the hostel would provide an opportunity for thousands of young women from towns and villages to mingle with others. “We congratulate the Tamil Nadu government for making this project a reality,” Li said.
This is the second time Liu is visiting Tamil Nadu this year. Foxconn assembles iPhones that are shipped across the world from India. The Taiwanese electronics major employs over 41,000 people in its facilities in and around Chennai, of which 35,000 are women.