Power cuts haunt Kovai industries

With the summer heat continuing to be in its peak, the nightmare of unscheduled power cuts has come to affect thousands of industries in Coimbatore resulting in them facing severe losses and a significant drop in production.

Upto five lakh labourers are dependent on the over 40,000 micro, small and medium enterprises in Tirupur and Coimbatore for their livelihood. The micro and cottage industrial units in those two districts are a major producer of automobile components, wet grinders, motor pump components and other spare parts for industrial machines.

The present situation has been compared to the long hours of power cuts in 2008, that led to several industrial units shutting their operations in Coimbatore and other western districts. Expressing their concern, industrialists said that power outages have resumed over the last one week. Claiming that the work often gets disrupted due to power interruptions, they said orders couldn’t be delivered on time as a result.

“The outage sometimes stretches up to three hours crippling industrial production. We were hoping for industries to get revived following the elections, but unscheduled power cuts have come as a setback for us,” J James, president of Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Micro Enterprises (TACT).

“If the big units go slow on production, then there may also be a dip in job orders to micro, small and medium enterprises. If there are scheduled power cuts, the industries could plan accordingly, but unannounced outages are resulting in them suffering huge losses,” he said.

According to James, Tangedco officials have reportedly given oral instructions to big industries to use generators during peak hours reportedly due to the power crisis. However, not all units can afford to use generators due to rising prices of diesel.

“Diesel prices, which was sold for around Rs 35 per litre in 2008 when the state witnessed intense power cuts, has almost doubled. It is economically unviable to use generators as the production cost of products would go up through the roof,” said K Maniraj, president of Kovai Power Driven Pumps and Spares Manufacturers Association (KOPMA).

Furthermore, the machinery tools get damaged during power outages and needs replacement, thereby adding to the cost borne by units. To avoid loss besides reducing power cuts, Maniraj urged Tangedco to take efforts to inform them in prior about power cuts through SMS.

“The industrial sector is slowly reviving after experiencing the disastrous effect of demonetisation and GST, but frequent power cuts have raised our fears of an uncertain future. The government should take precautionary measures to prevent thesituation from going bad to worse,” Maniraj said.

Industries in Coimbatore have threatened to resort to protests if the power situation does not return to normalcy.

“We have decided to meet the Tangedco officials and district administration seeking some reprieve from power cuts. If power outage continues, then it may deal a death blow to industries already struggling to survive,” said S Ravikumar, president of Coimbatore, Tirupur districts Micro and Cottage Entrepreneurs Association (COTMA).

When contacted, the Tangedco officials, however, assured that there were no power shortage and attributed the outages to maintenance works. “Industries were asked to connect to generators only for a day last week due to a sudden dip in wind power production,” said an official.