This Deepavali looks to be a bleak one for over 16,000 workers of the Kappalur Industrial Estate in the district, which has been affected by a series of interruptions in power supply.
These interruptions have seriously affected the production capacity of the units at the estate during the crucial Deepavali season and had seriously impacted the delivery schedule, according to J. Selvam, president, Kappalur Industrial Estate Manufacturers Association.
He told The Hindu in Madurai on Wednesday that as it were, meeting the bonus demands of labourers in the present economic recession was difficult. The power crisis was only compounding the problems for manufacturers, he said.
Almost all industries at the estate are small and medium enterprises that deal with plastic and textile sectors, goods which are worthless if supplied after Deepavali, he said.
The interruptions in power supply began from October 8 with half an hour unscheduled power cuts in the morning and afternoon. In addition, even during the scheduled load shedding hours, the power was cut half an hour before the time and restored half an hour late, resulting in another hour of unscheduled load shedding.
“Even prior to these interruptions, we were running 24 hours a day to meet our delivery schedules. Also, only our estate seems to have this problem as other industrial estates in the district are not suffering from any supply interruptions,” he said.
When contacted, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) officials said forced outages in several thermal generation units and sudden reduction in wind power generation were causing these problems in power supply.
