CHINIOT: The Wooden Furniture Manufacturers Association has urged the government to open their businesses as over 50,000 workers have become jobless since March 14 when the lockdown was slapped all over the country in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Association Secretary Malik Tahir said they had written letters to the chief minister, prime minister and the president to allow their business as the activity will not spread the deadly virus given the nature of their work.

Dawn has learnt that those rendered jobless neither have social security cover nor any savings. These workers and their families are totally dependent on the assistance by philanthropists or neighbours.

Muhammad Saglain, a father of four, has been working as furniture artisan for the last 20 years. He worked in various cities like Karachi and Lahore but finally settled back in Chiniot a few years back.

He told this correspondent that his family had been facing a crunch for the last some weeks as his savings had exhausted.

`The circumstances have so much worsened that even our friends, f amily and shopkeepers have ceased to lend any cash or grocery,` Saglain said with grim face.

He said most of the furniture artisans work from home as a piece work [carving on wood] while others work in small workshops having three to seven men. He said workers could work from home by keeping the social distance and other safety measures if the government allowed them to resume the activity.

Jawad Ahmad, a furniture workshop owner at Rajoa Road, said he had five workers and he assisted them for a while after the lockdown but now he himself had turned cash-strapped. He demanded that the government open the furniture cottage industry having up to seven workers along with the chain iron hardware stores; raw material like wooden market, tools shops and small furniture showrooms.