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• Industries, big and small, downed shutters and the promoters and their workers took to the street today to hold a demo in Coimbatore city demanding uninterrupted power supply. The production loss from today's strike has been estimated at Rs 400 crore.The city has been witnessing sporadic demonstrations over the past few days in different locations by the owners of industrial units, their family members and workers.Mild lathicharge,The demonstration held in Gandhipuram area in the heart of the city lasted for about 3 hours. There was a mild lathicharge of demonstrators who had blocked traffic in the area and about 10 persons were picked up by the police.
• While industry associations made it clear that while they do not want a confrontation with the Government, they wondered why the Government has not deputed any Minister to hold discussions with them to find an amicable solution to the simmering problem of power shortage though the TNEB Chairman had had meetings with them.During the DMK regime, too, there was a day’s closure of industries in the region over unannounced power cuts. The issue of preferential treatment to Chennai in the duration of power cuts raised the ire of the industries here after which the State Government tried to bring some parity between Chennai and the rest of the State in the duration of power cuts.
• With the problem of power shortage becoming more acute in recent months and the duration of cut increased to 5-6 hours a day. But this has worsened in recent days with the TNEB resorting to nearly 8 hours (of staggered power cuts in Tamil Nadu -- other than Chennai -- 6 hours during day time and 2 hours in the night (3+3+1+1 hour spells).This has had a crippling impact on the industries, particularly power-intensive industries that dominate the Kongu region, the second most industrially developed region in the State.Speaking to Business Line, Mr M. Kandhaswami, President, Coimbatore District Small Industries Association, said that he had, in a letter to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, last month, highlighted the plight of the industries because of the unscheduled power cut.
• He made a suggestion that to overcome the problem temporarily, a power holiday (staggered holiday) may be imposed in each region in the State for a day or two every week on turn basis.He regretted that at the political level, the problems of the industries of Coimbatore region have not drawn sufficient attention of the government authorities. He said the associations were not for any confrontation with the government on this issue but wanted their views to be heard so that a workable solution could be found.Mr Kandhaswami said the prolonged power cut in different stretches hit the functioning of the smaller units, affecting quality of products manufactured and added to the financial costs as productivity of workers was affected even as they have to be paid. Moreover, use of generators pushed up the production cost since captive power costs about Rs 16/unit compared to TNEB supply that was around Rs 4-Rs 5.50/unit.

Production loss

• Mr Mahendra Ramdas, President, Tamilnadu Electricity Consumers Association (TECA), Coimbatore, said bigger units outsourced components from smaller ancillaries that could not use generators because of space problems. This affected component supply to, and output from, bigger units. The continuous process industries and big spinning mills faced problems because the production processes were stopped suddenly and work interruptions caused delay and loss.
• He estimated that the one-day shut down of industries in the city may cause a production loss of about Rs 400 crore and the revenue loss to the exchequer, both the Central and the State, may be 20 per cent of it.Mr Ramdas was hopeful that the problem might ease by the middle of June when the wind power generation would pickup and efforts of the government to streamline and augment power production may bear fruit.
• But there was a danger of Coimbatore losing its market share because of power famine in sectors such as pumps and motors, auto components, spinning etc. Already spinning mills in AP have been able to wean away business from Coimbatore because of power availability there, he said.Mr J. James, District President, Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Micro Enterprises (TACT), Coimbatore, said that about 3,500 members of his association had closed their units today. He put the value of production loss suffered by his association members at about Rs 60 crore.He said the leaders of various associations would meet to decide on the future steps to be taken in their quest to end the problem of frequent disruption in power supply.

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