It’s a power fight between the industry and the farmers of the state and the industry seems to have lost. With the state facing a severe power crunch, the government had announced a power holiday a few days ago.
Industries are the worst hit even as the government is going all out to ensure power supply to the farmers, their major vote bank on the eve of the elections. “The government doesn’t seem to care for the industry as it is doing for the farmers. Our productivity is badly hit as we had to declare a power holiday for two days and rejig our production cycle,” rued an industrialist in Balanagar industrial area.
Under the new schedule, industries are getting power only for 20 hours in a day. “So, we had to change our shift, make it a 10-hour shift instead of the earlier eight-hour one. But then the extra two hours is not giving us any productivity. Further, as banks are closed for half-a-day on Saturday and completely on Sunday, it is hitting our administrative operations as well. In a way, it’s a fourday loss,” pointed out K Vamsidhar Reddy of MTAR Technologies in Balanagar that does precision engineering for the defence, space and nuclear sectors. It has 1,000 employees in its plant. Ditto is the case with all industries in the industrial area.
“Due to the power holiday, we had to change our three-shift cycle to a single shift one. Though we now shut the plant on Mondays and Tuesdays unlike just on Monday earlier, and maintaining a 45-hour week, our production cycle time is hit as all the workers land up on the same shift to work on the same machines. This has resulted in production delays and delivery to our customers,” complained the executive of a large PSU.
The IT and IT services sector has a different story to tell. Unlike manufacturing, they cannot shut down but maintain a 24X7 operation catering especially to overseas clients. “Since we have to maintain a seamless operation, I don’t have a choice but to use the generators which are used as a backup. My monthly power bills are going to go up by as much as 80 per cent. Roughly, it would go up by Rs 15 lakh per month,” said the head of facilities of an IT MNC. “The problem is also that I have to pay in cash upfront, unlike the power bill I pay monthly,” he added.
“This came too suddenly. We are trying to talk to the state government as to how this can be mitigated and make the power cuts predictable and least disruptive. We are also talking for ensuring uninterrupted supply of diesel so that companies can run their DG sets. It will impact our costs but hopefully this is only a short term problem,” said M Narsimha Rao, President, Hyderabad Software Exporters Association (Hysea) and vice-president and centre head of Infosys.
“But, we have to find a long-term solution for this. We are seen as a third world country and that should not be reinforced,” he added.
The sudden surge in demand for diesel is also visible as many users are seen buying diesel in drums at many petrol pumps in the city.
No comments:
Post a Comment