Industries brace up for yet another lockdown

CHENNAI: The next round of lockdown, set to begin Friday, will see Chennai losing its tag of being the auto hub of India, claim a section of auto makers who have set shop in the city. BC Datta, vice-president of Hyundai says that when plants of Tata, Mahindra, Honda and Maruti have started manufacturing in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan, firms like Hyundai will lose the advantage due to the lockdown here. 

The momentum gained after the lockdown was partially lifted, would now be lost, he says even while backing the government decision to contain the pandemic.

The government has allowed workers staying within the factory premises or nearby to work for all the 12 days, after taking RT-PCR tests, but Datta says this would not benefit his company as most of the 10,000-odd staff there --- working in two shifts --- do not stay nearby.   

The MSME sector is also worried. K Srikanth, the convenor of CII’s MSME panel in Tamil Nadu says the government has permitted certain industries to continue work, but has not clarified on which of them are being allowed yet.

“A list of those that will be allowed will be released in the next couple of days. Small industries will be hit hard if they asked to shut and reopen every now and then. The government should be clear about testing of workers, and must do it for free as the units are in distress right now.”K V Kanakambaram, president of The Industrial Estate Manufacturers Association says the lockdown is a big blow to small industrial units.

“The business was picking up but now the 12-day lockdown will hit the business hard,” he says. Kanakambaram said the entire steps taken after the industrial estates were allowed to function will go waste.

“We were slowly picking up and getting orders. Now everything will come to a standstill,” he says.
But then Kankambaram refuses to blame the state government for the spread of Covid-19. “What other measures the state could take. Caught between saving lives and saving livelihoods, the state has chosen to save lives, which is crucial,” he says, adding that the things will be normal only after a vaccine is developed.