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• Irked over the erratic power supply, owners of over 2,000 small and micro-industries in the industrial town of Sivakasi staged a protest on Monday.The owners and employees of the units stopped production for a day as part of the protest and also besieged the TNEB office there and raised slogans demanding regular power supply. The industrialists alleged that they had suffered a huge loss in the last one month alone due to power cuts.Sivakasi hosts thousands of industries with fireworks, matches, printing as the major ones while there are hundreds of supporting industries like mini-offsets, poly-packing, cutting and sorting. While big industries though incurring heavy costs manage with generator power, small-scale industries are worst hit as they cannot afford generators.
• Irked by the frequent unscheduled power cuts, the small entrepreneurs held a mass demonstration in front of the EB office at Tiruthangal Road. Addressing the demonstration, M Suresh Kumar from the federation said that they are not able to run the industries due to frequent power cuts. Production has been severely affected forcing hundreds of industries into loss and the EB should provide uninterrupted power for at least eight hours in a day, he said. "The state and Central governments should take measures to commission the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant which can greatly ease the present power crisis," he stated.
• "Thousands of workers depend on such industries. Let the government stop all the freebies but give uninterrupted power cut to the region to save thousands of workers," he mentioned. Explaining the plight of such industries, M Nagalingam of Sri Ramji Polybags said there are more than 350 polythene industries alone in Sivakasi while there are hundreds of small industries like scoring, cutting and laminating."Polythene industry is worst-hit because processing needs continuous power supply. We need at least one hour to heat the machines alone after which the production starts, by then the power goes off. It causes huge wastage as the semi-processed plastic goes waste. We are not able to manage this wastage costing more than Rs 1,400 per day," he said. "Besides, we need to pay wages to the workers including the idle hours. Whenever power goes, we industrialists suffer mental trauma," he said.
• "We are aware of the power crisis in the state.We are asking the authorities for uninterrupted power supply at least eight hours in a day. The frequent power cuts bleed the industries. Let them announce power holiday in a week like they do on monthly maintenance. We are ready to work even on Sundays to help the EB but we need uninterrupted power for our wages," said one worker.Meanwhile, stainless steel, aluminium utensils and stove manufacturers of Sellur region in Madurai region staged a novel demonstration at Tagore Nagar by holding kerosene lights and aluminium utensils.

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