Over 25,000 big, medium and small units of the Coimbatore region were shut down on Friday in protest against unscheduled and long hours of load-shedding.
Entrepreneurs and workers, along with their families, numbering around 8,000, staged a demonstration at Gandhipuram, a busy commercial hub of Coimbatore. The arterial Dr. Nanjappa Road was filled with protesters, forcing the police to divert the traffic. At one point, unit owners and workers blocked traffic as they felt agitated over police stopping them from distributing gruel. The police also used force to disperse them.
The participating units, employing nearly three lakh workers, said they were forced to stage protest. While the units lost Rs. 250 crore, the day's shutdown also denied the government Rs. 25 crore that should have come as tax, representatives of the units said.
While many industrial units declared a holiday with wages, those that did not declare a holiday brought attendance registers to the demonstration venue for the employees to sign in.
Thirty-one industry associations took part in the demonstration, led by Coimbatore District Small Scale Industries Association (CODISSIA) president M. Kandhaswami. Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP from Coimbatore P.R. Natarajan and Valparai MLA M. Arumugam (Communist Party of India) addressed the protesters.
The placards carried by the agitators flayed the Central and State governments for not being concerned about the industries and the livelihood of the workforce. Some of them said: “Uninterrupted power supply for MNCs and SEZs and uninterrupted power cut for domestic industries,” “Streamline power cuts to streamline supply”, and “End discrimination. Why only one-hour power cut for Chennai and 11 hours for Coimbatore?”
Echoing the problems of Coimbatore industrialists and entrepreneurs, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry State Council N.K. Ranganath told reporters in Chennai that the State government should declare 40 per cent power cut and ensure uninterrupted power supply for six to seven hours for industries.
