Gloom descends on industries as TN govt extends lockdown

Coimbatore: Industrialists are disappointed with the government’s decision not to relax the lockdown norms further in 11 districts, including Coimbatore, citing higher Covid-19 cases.
The government order said the districts with higher caseload would continue to function with the existing relaxations till June 28.
C Sivakumar, president, Coimbatore, Tirupur district Micro & Cottage Entrepreneurs Association, said they were expecting the government to allow them to operate from this week. “We are really disappointed with the government’s move. Most of the industrial units haven’t operated for the past 50 days and the livelihood of the unit owners and workers are at stake. A few days ago, we had requested the district collector to take necessary steps to grant permission to operate at least the units functioning with one or two workers.”
As far as the micro industries are concerned, he said, the district has incurred about Rs 3 crore to Rs 5 crore loss per day since the lockdown had been imposed. “Most of them have exhausted their savings and are struggling.”
Explaining that the impact of the ongoing lockdown was worse than that of the previous year, Sivakumar said the lack of uniformity in unlocking the restrictions was likely to cost the industrial units in the district dear, as chances of orders going out of their hands were high.
J James, district president, Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Tiny Enterprises, said it would be difficult for the industries to revive without the government’s assistance after the lockdown. “We have requested the government to provide us additional time to pay the electricity charges and repay the loans, waive off interest and extend a separate loan up to Rs 1 lakh with a minimum interest for micro industries. But we have not received any response from both the Union and the state governments.”
Pointing out that many industrial units were functioning out of rental buildings and struggling to pay the rents, he said most of the industrialists were paying wages to the workers from their pockets to prevent them from leaving the district, despite the poor financial situation. “When the government allows us to resume operations, we have to worry about factors like availability of raw materials and labours as well.”
M V Ramesh Babu, president, Coimbatore District Small Industries Association, said the production loss of the industries had gone up to 70% in the past two months because of the lockdown. “It would have been better had the government allowed us to operate with minimal workforce by adhering to Covid-19 guidelines. We hope the government will allow us to resume operations from next week at least. It will take a minimum of seven to 10 days for us to function in a full-fledged manner.” He said the guest workers were ready to return to work. “We are also receiving inquiries from other districts.”